A Look at the Other Side
by Charlie2000
Summary: The nuzlocke fad became a common form of battling in some regions, especially the region of hoenn. Conrad Hyno, after graduating from high school, is brought from the Johto region to Hoenn to take part of the nuzlocke challenge with her sister. Upon first realizing the violence of gore of the new form of battle, Conrad leaves his sister, pledging to end the nuzlocke for good.
1. Prologue

*November 15th, 2014*

Perspectives have become a game in the world. One side can warp the minds that reside on the neutral side, hoping to get more people on their side of the story. Think of it as a jury; the defense and prosecution constantly barraging each other in hopes of swaying more jurors to go for their sides.

No matter how my life went I never was able to get everyone onto my own side. That's something most people should learn; you can never get everyone to side with your part of the story no matter how much you beg, plead, or cry out your words of wisdom. What stops you from getting your words to the opposite men would be how they have their own perspectives opposing to yours.

The Pokemon World; such an astounding part of our universe it is. More than six billion humans and billions more pokemon reside in it. Pokemon; they are the creatures that inhabit this world, each one of them having their own abilities, powers, looks, etc. Humans have learned to befriend said creatures and fight alongside them. Before now, battling pokemon was a simple game of trying to faint the opposing pokemon, making you the winner.

Key words are to be noticed when speaking, and they can be the main discussion points in any worthy conversation. Notice how I said 'before now' instead of 'now.' Normally, people would question why I did this. Well, the reason is because the Pokemon World is no longer the holder of the fun game that was pokemon battling; at least, that's the case with me.

Pokemon war is what now inhabits the world. And before you all ask; no, I don't mean that there are literally wars fought with pokemon. That would be a bit of a stretch. Although you trainers nowadays barely remember this, due to the fact that its mostly been banned from society, but have you ever once heard of the term 'Nuzlocke?'

A savage practice to some and a chance to truly hone your skills to others; in a nuzlocke battle, the pokemon participating in the battle no longer can faint. The pokemon that inhabit the pokeballs are able to die and can kill opposing pokemon. Such a practice is normally seen as barbaric; heck, when the fad began back in the early 2000s most people deemed nuzlocke trainers to be the "plague of the pokemon world" or something along the lines of that.

Strange; something created by one man was able to spread across many regions. That's what fads are for, I guess.

Even though this fad was only starting out when I left my home … this fad had caused stress to build. No matter how hard I tried to keep the stress away it seemed to only call for me more and more, gripping me until more of the beings around me suffered the fate which had called my name. Fortunately, I am writing to probably non-existent readers, which means I'm still alive.

In my own perspective the nuzlocke should have never been a part of the pokemon world. It only caused sadness wherever I went. Other people may disagree and will disagree, but that was a normality; like I said before, you can never get everyone to side with you even though you try to present the most looked-into facts you could find; they would just rebuttal against you with more facts supporting their side. From that, the battle of perspectives begin.

My apologies; I talk about perspectives yet I didn't aid in mine by introducing myself. My name is Conrad Hyno. I am 24 years old and currently a resident of a private island that only I know about; you might say that I consider this as an escape from the world when, in my eyes, it is a fresh home for myself and my pokemon to inhabit.

Now don't take what I say too personally. From calls from many psychologists, they tell me that sometimes writing your thoughts down on paper can actually relieve some of the stress that had been put on you in your life. They said it's like talking to someone while getting stuff off your chest. Interestingly, I am writing in the mindset that someone is going to read what I'm going to type.

From within, all I ever wished was a simple pokemon journey. I wanted to do what some kids always wanted to do; explore the pokemon world after high school, and later get enrolled back into college and, during summer vacation, try to earn 8 badges and enter in the pokemon league. Unfortunately, the nuzlocke seemed to make my life as stressful as possible by ruining everything for me. My life had been continuous cycle of setback after setback, death after death; I hated it. However, even though my life was grim it was mostly just a blanket of darkness shrouding over me with only a 'glimmer of light' shining through.

As I remain in my room, separated by the societies around me, I want you to look at my perspective of things. I want you to understand where I'm coming from so that you can take a glance at what most people see as the opposing argument in this new world. Please, I beg you, to take a look at the other side.


	2. 1 - The Arrival

*August 6, 2008*

Soft tones of my fellow passengers kept glancing across the aisles, dancing from ear to ear and continually disturbing my slumber. The people around varied from eager, silent, or down-right becoming insane from the children crying time to time. It didn't bother me though; it wasn't something that would rile me up so easily to the point that it would drive me to be insane.

I found myself smiling, almost carefree. It was as if every care in the world had just left me there on the rest-bed of a plane as I drifted away from the johto region. It had been a few hours since I departed from the airport, and already I found myself wanting to go back to sleep; I wanted to dream, or more or less predict my future's story.

My head was filled with many different choices; each road that I designated for myself was different. For pokemon trainers, especially new ones, I knew that many of them had different choices when it came to how they performed their work. It got me thinking for a bit about the way the region worked though.

There was a large pocket on the chair in front of me. It was behind the seat and it was filled with many colorful brochures about the restaurants, five-star hotels, and the many resorts around the region I was going to. Curious, I grabbed one of the folders and began to let my eyes drift inside of them. I wasn't particularly glad at the first words that came up, but my sister Arreka told me that I should be getting used to the term "nuzlocke" even though it is outlawed in the Johto region.

In big letters, behind the cover of the brochure, said, "This region's main form of battle is nuzlocking. Be warned of nuzlocke trainers, for you don't have to battle them if you're too accustomed to your previous training ways."

The wording could've been better; at least that's what I thought to myself. I wasn't particularly angry at the sight of the nuzlocke being mentioned in front of me; I merely just tried to ignore it. My sister told me she was going to allow me to do it up close and see if my opinion changed. Although I replied yes to her on the phone, I settled the idea in my head that I wasn't going to be changed so easily, especially when death's involved.

"Pardon me, sir." In the aisle to my left was a woman flight attendant who had a tray filled with small finger-foods. The assortment looked quite appetizing, with the staryu shaped potato chips and the sandwiches stuffed an assortment of meats and cheeses. She was a brunette and had no sign of blemishes on her face, which was pale white. Her suit was the darkest of blue, and golden colored buttons ran down the middle of the uniform. A grin flashed across both of our faces as our eyes met. "Would you like something from our assortment of foods?"

"Any one of those will do, but just be sure to give me a small one." I wasn't too hungry, for I had already stuffed myself before the plane ride. She began to hand over to me the sandwich when she noticed that I was looking at the inside cover. Her expression changed slightly. She wasn't angry, but it seemed like she had a mellow tone on her face like she knew something bad was going to happen. "Um… Miss?"

She snapped out of it quickly, but her previous expression was locked into my mind. It had seemed that her opinion of the nuzlocke had been set in my mind; 'It's not something worth doing,' was what I thought she said to me with her face. Politely, she handed me the sandwich as I pulled down the tray from behind the seat in front of me. She merely walked away after that.

I found myself unable to eat that sandwich; the expression in her eyes was just too much for me to just put away to the very corner of my mind... I sighed to myself as the perfectly good sandwich just remained on the table as my eyes wearily opened and closed. The plane seemed to sway my head back and forth. Slower and slower, my head rolled against the cushion of my seat.

My eyes wearily closed themselves one last time until I finally succumbed to the darkness of sleep…

The sound of bustling people woke me from my short slumber. Still in a short daze, I pulled out my PDA and checked the time. It was currently 4:50 P.M. "Finally," I said to myself as I stretched my arms and legs outwards. It was relieving; knowing that my flight was short and sweet. Even though I wanted to rest a bit more I knew that I had to leave quickly before my one piece of luggage was to evade me.

Like most airports, once we arrived by plane our luggage would normally go through some sort of luggage transport, and on the lower floor we would normally receive our luggage by some sort of conveyor belt or something like that. The conveyor belt would be suspended by a foot and would show a set path going in a U or S shaped path.

This piece of luggage was special though; It had one of my most important belongings in there… well, I should rephrase that. To be honest, it's hard to call a being a "belonging," I mean, she isn't an object. Of course, I'm talking about the pokemon I currently have. I named her Yinca, and her species of pokemon will be talked about later.

I realized that my sandwich was still resting on the desk in front of me, event though the flight attendant was supposed to wake me up earlier due to how having the desk still set up like this isn't necessarily okay. Normally, the flight attendants tell us to put our trays back up during our descent to the ground. I began to wonder why the flight attendant missed such a detail, but because I was still alive I didn't see much reason to keep thinking about it.

Feeling eager to leave, I simply just grabbed the sandwich, my backpack, and my PDA and just walked off the plane, plain and simple. I wasn't particularly paying attention to the flight attendant for she seemed disinterested with me at the moment; it was like she was intentionally trying to ignore my very presence. Guess I just couldn't please everybody.

As I exited the plane, the passengers and I went through this small little tunnel or tunnel-bridge, which is normally called a 'gate' or a 'jetway.' The tunnel was for passengers to both get on and get off the plane; I could easily tell by the people that were eagerly at the end (or to the opposite passengers, the entrance) of the tunnel.

I exited, and the smell of Hoenn air rushed through my lungs and body in record time. I noticed a slight presence of humidity, which was common for this region was in fact a tropical region for the most part. Walking took a bit of time to get used to, considering the fact that I had just walked off a plane just after laying down for about 3-5 hours. Honestly, I was just glad to get off that thing; I wanted to see one person in particular, and I was in a rush to see her again.

Before the plane ride, 'she' had sent me a text to wait at the exit of my current gate. I began to look around my current location, only noticing multitudes of people crossing the paths of my eyes and all-around annoying me; I wanted to see only one person in particular, not about a gazillion (If that even is a real number). The smells of airline food were drifting into my nostrils, and quickly I was eager to get a quick bite to eat besides this turkey sandwich I still had in hand. I grumbled to myself, wishing that the attendant gave me something like a cheeseburger instead of a turkey sandwich.

Hell, if anything she should have just given me a cheeseburger; the cows to make them may only be slightly more populous in those private farms, but they are still more populous nonetheless. I've always hated this sort of crap. Sure, we only eat some pokemon but the rest of our meat products come from what remains of the animals species many many MANY years ago. It's hard to explain, hell, I only learned this in history class. Apparently, pokemon weren't always living here; animals and humans inhabited this planet long, long ago. From what historians could gather, pokemon appeared, but the human populations couldn't figure out why. After a while of the pokemon living on the planet, although they got used to the humans, they still didn't like the animals that existed with us. Pokemon began to rampage against many different species of animals, causing havoc across the world in terms of meat stock. Then the animals began to become a rarity, so many olden-age farmers kept animals in private farms where they could still sell fresh meat which evolved into the meat farms used today.

Most, if not almost all pokemon have the worst tasting meat; other people other the years tested this, not me in case you're wondering. Either way, over time those farms developed into public corporations and companies designed to keep breeding and raising up cattle and other animals for food. The only animals left on this planet are chickens, pigs, cows, turkeys, and pretty much any species relatable to the previously stated ones that are similar in taste and purpose of existence. Every other animal… gone. This all started a very long time ago, and even now I'm still skeptical about the details for some reason.

So yeah, I just wanted a burger, and I wanted to ditch this turkey sandwich. Sadly, the only money I had was in my wallet in the one piece of freaking luggage I had on the belt on the lower floor, so I had to settle with the sandwich. Upon feeling it again, I already could feel slight dissatisfaction with the texture and the overall 'temperature' of the sandwich. It was too warm, and within the first bite I felt a slight oddity in the taste. The cheese had been let out for too long, but I knew that wasting it would be bad for the turkey, so I stomached most of it in a few gulps.

I was beginning to feel impatient; my sister was nowhere to be seen and I knew that I had to get to my luggage quickly before it gets placed in the "lost and found" section. I didn't want to be late for it, so I just took off. I began to race through the crowds of people, occasionally bumping into many shoulders of the pedestrians around me.

No one was making room for me. It was as if they wanted to keep me from going anywhere; it just seemed to happen at the worst of times. I continued to barrage my way through the crowd, and finally I reached a breaking point through the crowd; an escalator.

Quickly, I ran for the escalator and raced down the moving staircases. Suddenly, a familiar face found herself slammed right against the flattest part of my forehead; I was running so fast that I couldn't see exactly where I was going. The both of us fell onto the floor, nearly dazed by the quick impact. I felt weird for just bumping into her like that, and oddly enough she had the strength to get herself back onto her feet before me.

Before long, I noticed that she had her hand pressed firmly on the side of her head. She began to mumble a few curse words, for the pain was getting to her. I didn't have the energy to reply back with a 'sorry' nor was I able to get myself back to my feet by myself. I felt so damn dazed.

Oddly enough, the angered female teen had her first wrapped firmly around the collar of my shirt. She tugged me back to my feet and slightly lifted me in the air; at least two inches of the ground. My vision was still a bit fuzzy, but I could still make out the face quite well, but for some reason she didn't seem to recognize me. "What the hell were you doing?" She asked me. "You got some nerve running down the escalator like that and nailing me upside the head; you could've killed me. What the hell is your problem?"

And at that moment I knew it was her. Everyone, please meet my sister, Arreka Hyno. A rather touch cookie, would you think? She used to be my main protector of sorts, for she is my older sister. At this time, she was 20 years old; two years older than me. Amazingly, all you sexists who are against the women being tough can go home and screw off, 'cause my sis was touch to the bone.

"Well, you gonna answer?" She asked again. "Quit talking like that or I'm gonna knock some more sense back into ya."

She's… quite amazing. Funny thing was, during the skype chats we used to have on the internet, I would see her face but she would see mine, since my mother wouldn't give me a laptop with a webcam. Either way, I knew what her face looked like, and by my guess you could say she forgot mine. "Did six years really change me that much?" I chuckled.

"… Excuse me?" She asked.

"Arreka, come on," I replied. "No need for a brawl here-"

"How do you know my name?"

Honestly, I was beginning to lose faith in her getting my hints. I figured that I had to spell it out for her, especially since so far I'm nothing but a complete stranger to her. "So… um… can you please let your bro down?"

Arreka reacted rather strangely to my comment. Her eyes widened, and she quickly let go of my collar, releasing me from her little dastardly prison. She seemed to lose balance for a few seconds, probably through a sudden burst of guilt that was now storming through her body. She began to observe me carefully, and I only stood there smiling like a goofball.

"No… WAY!" Arreka yelled out. This might be a bad time to bring this up, but I was now a bit taller to the point that I was her exact height. Six years ago, the roles in height were completely different; I was a lot smaller than her. Arreka was amazed by my sudden height increase, no doubt. She seemed to forget about me bumping into her, soon grasping me in a full embrace with her arms.

She looked rather nice in the clothes she was wearing; a red sweat shirt with gray pants, probably khakis (kackies). She wore a blue bandana which was wrapped around her forehead with the symbol of a pokeball on it. Rather noticeable was her blonde hair, which was streamed down gracefully around her hair, straightened out like she had just got her hair done at a salon… but then I remembered that she hated salons. Not even she knows why her hair is naturally that amazing.

Tears of joy began to run down her face as the embrace continued. I found myself unable to hug her back due to my arms being squeezed by the energetic teen. Minutes seemed to pass by as many bystanders around me began to look at us oddly as they walked on by. The air in my system was beginning to run out, nearly suffocating me. Finally, Arreka let go of me, but she was still incredibly energetic.

"Look how big you got!" She yelled out with a large smile. "Conrad, you're not even the same age as me, and now look at you; you're almost 6 feet tall now!"

"Heh, it's nice to see you again, sis."

"How was your flight?"

"It was pretty good; I slept through most of it, honestly," I replied as the both of us began to walk towards the luggage conveyor belt in hopes to get my one peace of luggage. "The flight attendant was glaring at me though for a moment; she kinda gave me the creeps?"

Arreka sighed for a moment. I turned my head over to her in curiosity. "Conrad, did you say something wrong to a girl again?"

"What? No, no no… NO!" I said loudly in emphasis. Arreka didn't seem to by it; I knew she was the type of girl that expected every little piece of detail, which I guess was a common trait in our family. "I just asked the lady if she could give me a sandwich, due to her serving some on the plane, and then she looked at what I was reading. She looked at me oddly ever since I read it."

"What was it about?"

I felt like I was being interrogated. I always hated that feeling, but I always tried to interrogate other people for info if you call this interrogating; guess I'm just that hypocritical. "It was about the nuzlocking in this region and how visitors from non-nuzlocking regions should be careful here. Other than that, she didn't seem to mind my behavior."

"Ah, there lies the problem," Arreka replied. "Conrad, there are certain people you need to look out for and stay away from. She's one of them."

"Why's that?" I asked as we finally got to the conveyor belt. I knelt down to the belt and noticed that my bag was coming over. I continued to wait for an answer but it seemed like Arreka was eager to help me get my bag at the moment. She kept looking at it as it slowly moved along the conveyor belt until finally I grasped the large backpack I decided to bring. Arreka turned and looked at me a bit funny. "… what?"

"You didn't need to bring that," She replied back to me. "Just a few shirts, pants, and underwear. You're going to be coming a few friends and I on 'the road' right?"

"A few friends?" I asked. I began to lower my tone of voice a bit. "Wasn't it supposed to just be you and me?"

"Things change, and people like you and me need to get used to it." Arreka grabbed the bag I packed from my hand and turned away. I didn't get the answer to my question though; why was that flight attendant angry with me all because I read that little piece of text? The question bothered me for quite some time.

I knew I had to stop wondering about it though; I noticed that Arreka wasn't slowing down for me; she was always that hasty. I began to run as Arreka continued to walk quickly out of the airport; it was like she was late for something. Something inside me told me that something was up, but I chose not to listen to it. Arreka opened the door, and that was when I finally caught up to her again.

We took a taxi through Rustboro City. I fell asleep through most of it; I guess that day was my lazy day. Unfortunately, I didn't get too much of a glimpse of the city, so once I found myself awake in a hotel room I found myself to be incredibly misplaced. I began to grumble to myself, beginning to curse at myself for choosing to sleep at probably the worst time; when in a freaking taxi.

The hotel room was not too shabby to be honest; it looked ok. There were four beds in total, giving me the hint that the 'friends' that Arreka told me about only existed in a pair. I felt a little relieved; I actually thought that she was going to get an entire group of boys into here, or maybe she got so popular in school that she decided to take the class with her. It was then that I realized that she had been out of school for two years; our family wasn't exactly the richest so a decent college was out of the question.

Gorgeous lights were lit to my right, showing hues of scarlet red and a marble blue color along the walls furthest away. What made it cooler was that it was a strobe light; the colors seemed to move around and it was sort of calming to me.

There was an odd feeling on my chest. I looked along the bed I remained in and found a note. Curious, I got out of the bed and grabbed the note. Before reading it I checked the signature on it to see who it was from. Apparently, the signature was read as "Arreka Hyno." The letter read as followed;

"-Dear Sleepy Head,

You really need to sleep more often. Just because today is a Saturday doesn't give you the excuse to stay up so late. I remember you going to sleep around 9:00 p.m. but I guess you're a different kid now… or should I say different man? Anyways, I put the clothes you would need from your luggage into your backpack and I disposed of your extra luggage. Trust me, everything you need is in that backpack by the door.

Speaking of which, I got to meet up with that Houndoom of yours. Yinca didn't seem to like me though; you'd think after all those years she would've forgiven me for not believing in you… I hope I don't have to explain it. Either way, she is now currently out of her pokeball, so by the time you wake up, expect a houndoom to be around."

I stopped reading the letter for a second. For a moment, I began to look around the room in search of Yinca. She's my houndoom, and probably one of my closest of friends… well, probably my only one at the time. I began to worry, for she was nowhere to be seen. It was then that I remembered something so obvious that I found it completely ridiculous that I didn't think of it before.

I remembered how, at home, Yinca would sleep under my bed occasionally, and she would do this while my bed was suspended of the ground by those four pole things at the end of each of them. I began to shake around in the bed, noticing how the bed began to sway a bit with each toss and turn of each jump.

Suddenly, a black-furred being rushed out from under the bed. It didn't take her a moment for her to know what happened; by the time I knew it she had already leapt onto the bed and started licking my face like crazy to show affection. She had been like this ever since I got her; she appreciated my existence like I was the fine line between life and death for her…

Actually, if people were to believe me back then, then the "like I was," which I said in my previous statement, would become a "because."

It took her a few moments to finally calm down. I found the moment too heartwarming; feeling her soft, wet, and grey nose nudge my face as she continued to lick. I was laughing away as my friend continued to rush around the room with so much energy to spare. She had been in her pokeball all day, and she needed to use up all her excess energy. When she finally leaped onto the bed again she licked me one more time and then sat up straight.

I was still in a laughing mood; I couldn't talk without having to laugh from what she just did. "You need to take it easy, girl," I chuckled in response as I began to pet her on the head. "I know being in your pokeball sucks and all, but there's no need to get all hyped up. It's nearly 6:00 p.m. anyways… at least, I think it is."

Yinca barked back with a smile still present on my face. She got up from her spot and positioned herself right next to me. I began to wonder what she was doing until she pressed her red muzzle. "Oh, right, the letter." I said, finally understanding what she meant. "I still have to keep reading that, thanks for reminding me."

I continued to read;

"-I am currently out to dinner with the two other friends I was talking about. Their names are Robert Kitsune and Rooxie Chroe. Don't worry about food; I ordered you a hamburger.-" I had to stop reading for a second, for I did a small 'yes' moment by quickly thrusting my arm upwards and saying, "YES!"

"-I plan on talking to them on how they can go a bit easy on you while explaining the rules about the thrill of nuzlocking. Also, since I remember you being quite shy around people I figured that I might as well have them already get a clue on who you are and what you do.

I figured that I might as well show you the ropes of nuzlocking so you can get familiar with its ruling. First of all, your pokeballs are going to be equipped with a small piece of tech that allows the pokemon to actually kill another pokemon, but at the cost of removing the 'fainting' part of a pokemon. That's normally how it goes. Nuzlocke trainers have to, I repeat, have to ask the trainers to battle and must wait for a yes answer. If they say no, well, then they can't battle.

We're also going to have to find a good grinding area. If you don't know, Conrad, grinding is when you basically train off multiples of pokemon in an area at once. Meaning, we're going to have to kill off some groups of pokemon we find in the wild. Trust me, it'll get time to get used to before you are okay with killing a pokemon, but don't worry about it.

And I don't really know what else to write. The service in this cheap hotel is not that great so expect your burger to arrive a bit later than expected. Anyways, hope you get some sleep before tomorrow morning, because that's when we head out!"

…

That was the end of the letter.

Honestly, I couldn't really think after that. Even though I was trying really hard to get used to this nuzlocke thing, I still couldn't get over the fact that I had to start killing even more pokemon to actually just train. To think that I would be actually doing it was just even more traumatizing to just think about.

Yinca began to whine by my side, carefully and slowly nudging her head against mine. She seemed like she had wanted to say something, but she knew the boundaries of speech in this universe; pokemon can understand human speech, but humans can not understand pokemon speech. I always hated that stupid hindering factor because that factor causes us humans to lack so much understanding of what's going on in the world around us since pokemon occupy so much of it.

I turned over to her and gave her another pat on the head. "There's nothing to worry about Yinca, I'm fine." Although I replied with a happier message, she didn't seem to pay attention to what I was saying. Her eyes were basically glued to the piece of paper and I wanted to ask her why, but it seemed like her eyes were glued to this one simple name; Rooxie Chroe. "Yinca, do you recall the name from somewhere?"

She didn't respond back to me with the answer; she only shook her head rapidly and smiled again. I knew what she was doing; she was trying to shake her emotions and thoughts about this man from her mind. Such actions are so similar to human traits, and they are being expressed by what humans refer to as nothing but 'creatures.'

Either way, I didn't want to get on her bad side tonight, and I knew that waiting for Arreka to come before eating would only consume more time. Not only that, but my food wasn't here yet. All I could then was wait… wait for the food to come and for tomorrow to finally begin.


	3. 2 - Grinding

*August 7, 2008*

This day was one to remember. This day was worth at least many diamonds, even the ones that sparkled like the stars in the sky. One person said that knowledge is better than the best treasures, but sadly I can barely even remember him. Even so, I took that ideal into account, and because of this knowledge that I have today, I'm glad that I even began the journey. In fact, if this day was removed from history, then I wouldn't be the man that I am today.

It began slowly with calm breezes of fresh air flowing against my nose. The sound of an alarm clock vibrated my ears, sending harsh noises to bounce off my eardrums. I woke up with a dull facial expression, but inside my head I was incredibly excited. Even though I was going to do something that I figured at the time not that well—that being the nuzlocke challenge—I knew that I was going to spend time with my sister; we were so far apart for so long.

I swallowed the night-old saliva as I rose from the bed. Even though I was out of bed, I still felt half asleep, which only made me want to go back to bed. Before I could make up my mind on that certain issue a bark was heard from beside me. The devil-dog looked over at me with a smile on her face with her silver horns shining in the sunlight. Even though she was a Dark-type pokemon, her coat of black fur seemed to shine to a great magnitude.

She wasn't like a devil-pokemon like I was once told; she was a graceful and grateful friend. I could never forget that one moment between me and her…

Before I could think back to it, I noticed that Arreka wasn't in the room. On her bed was only another note. Unfortunately, I didn't even get a chance to see her last night; I had fallen asleep once I ate my burger and fries. I had this weird gurgling feeling in my stomach; I knew that I shouldn't have lain down immediately after eating, that's never good for a human like me.

Curious, I picked up the note on her bed. Yinca bolted for and jumped onto the bed in one, strong leap. She was eager about that paper more than I was, which I still found rather odd. On the letter it read the following;

"Meet us by the exit of Rustboro city by route 104. It's going to be a few days of walking, but we're heading for a small harbor to take us to Dewford towm since the gym leader here is absent for the time being. Rooxie and Robert are going to be there with me; we'll be waiting for you."

It was then signed with Arreka's incredibly cursive-script handwriting. I always thought that just looking at it made me want to learn how to do it too; it looked really amazing.

It didn't take me too long to finally make up my mind then and there. I looked over to Yinca, who slowly nodded her head in a 'yes' motion. I could still feel a small sense of fear from the letter that we both read last night. I took in a deep breath, finally approaching the door, turning the doorknob, and finally leaving the room with Yinca right by my side.

Rustboro city ... in the short time I walked through it, was incredible to look at. Most of the buildings rose up to pierce the heavens with their incredible height and stature. The skyscrapers there were pointy at the very top, which reinforced the word 'pierce' for me. The people around me were calming to listen too. There was no rustle and bustle in the city; it was calm and almost quiet, and not even in the eerie sense, but in the peaceful sense.

On the way to the route, I noticed a small park with children frolicking with their pokemon. One small kid ran around with a small, green and yellow dog-like creature running right behind him with a cheerful grin across his or her face. It was an electrike, an electric type pokemon. I always wanted one of those because of their speed and strong attacks, especially their evolutions.

I had to stop for a moment. Yinca seemed confused by my sudden action as I watched the other kids run around in the park with other pokemon of their own, varying in many different colors. What set me off in a good way was the fresh breeze; the park was perfect for this scenario. The trees around it slowly swayed from side to side with the occasional berry on the tree glistening against the sun with its ripeness.

Taking in a breath of fresh air, my mind began to go far back into many years ago. I remembered a familiar scenario like this; Yinca and I, when I was only 11 years old, ran through this very exact park. I remembered Arreka watching me from the distance with my mother by her side as she watched me play. My dad wasn't around that much; he had been working hard as a lawyer through most of the days so many times a week that I mostly saw only Mom.

I quickly shook the memory from my mind with a quick twitch. Slowly, I looked over to Yinca, who seemed to have her mind set to that fountain at the very middle of the park. It was there that I suddenly saw a kid allowing one of his pokemon to drink from the water fountain. From the looks of things, the pokemon was small and had tan and brown zigzag patterns on it; a zigzagoon.

"We should get moving," I suddenly announced. Yinca had already gotten used to be here again that she almost lost track of time as well. She quickly dashed ahead of me as the both of us continued to move towards the direction of route 104. It was easy to locate due to many signs pointing to its general direction.

Time wasn't wasted, for Yinca and I had finally located Arreka near the exit of the city. She was standing next to two young men, who, from the looks of things, were probably the same age as Arreka. As I walked towards her with Yinca, I noticed that Arreka quickly noticed me by the corner of her eye. She suddenly smiled and ran over to me, giggling slightly from the sight of me.

She had an innocent face on her today. Personally, I thought it fit rather nicely. "Glad you could make it," Arreka announced. She grabbed hold on my arm and began to drag me over to the two young men. I kept losing my balance the more she kept pulling me, and Yinca remained close to my side to keep extra watch; she didn't want me to fall over due to Arreka's sudden signs of being incredibly exuberant.

Arreka felt the need to take charge of the conversation, but before she began I noticed that the two men had somewhat awkward faces on them; they were nervously laughing, probably from the little stunt that Arreka pulled. I didn't say this out loud, but I know that someone must've heard me when I silently mumbled, "This is so emberassing."

"Alright, Conrad!" Arreka exclaimed. "Now, I want you to meet these two young men right here. I know that you aren't exactly the most social but I need you to pay attention to their names, ok?"

"Oh, come on, Arreka!"

"Hey, it's not my fault that you have a bad memory."

"It's only for names, Arreka," I replied back to her. "Just, and only, for names."

"Which is exactly why you need to pay extra attention to what I'm about to say," She concluded. I took a look at one of the two men that stood right across from me. They both seemed rather nice-looking. "Now, this man on the right is Rooxie, Rooxie Chroe-" Before she continued on I took a quick glance at this person. He wore a black sweatshirt, blue jeans, which I thought added nicely to the sweatshirt. He also wore this white hat, which was weird since the sweatshirt he was wearing right now was actually a hoody. The hat in question looked a bit off sided, but I think that was partially the point. It had small fluffs on the end of it, especially at the very top, which didn't seem to match the "I am hardcore," writing on the sweatshirt and the blue jeans. "-And this man is Robert Kitsune." I took at look at him too. He looked incredibly different overall. He was taller than Rooxie, and Rooxie was surprisingly shorter than me. Robert was taller than both me and Arreka by about two inches. He wore a red t-shirt with no text, black pants, and his hair was long a brown. I guess he knew that weird text on sweatshirts like, 'I am hardcore' was just too mainstream.

Robert took control by extending his hand to me for a handshake. "Nice to meet you; during the last few years of highschool here your sister has told me all about you, Conrad Hyno."

"Please, just Conrad," I replied back as I grabbed the shaking hand. "Anyways, I'm surprised that the both of you know my sister. Did you really go to school with her?"

"Well, I actually did. I remember Rooxie moving to Petalburg City a few years back, probably around 8, so it took a while for him to remember Arreka."

"I see…"

"But either way, its very nice that you can come with us; with many other nuzlocke trainers around I find this to be a once in a lifetime treat that Rooxie and I are handing out to you two."

Arreka turned and began to speak. "That's right. Conrad, the people that are standing right in front of us are two of the very few best nuzlocke trainers in the region." My mind froze up for a moment. I couldn't believe that celebrities were now in my presence, even when it involves something I'm not completely fond of yet. The fact that people with their status took the time out of their lives to teach us how to nuzlocke was just too surprising. "Conrad, they are sponsored by many different pokemon-related companies around the world. These guys in front of us are pretty much the crème of the crop."

"But Arreka, didn't you only just finish High school around two years ago?" I asked back to her.

"Exactly the reason why these two are so popular; these two got to the reputation they have now in only two years!"

"Only two years?!" I yelled back. Arreka nodded back at me. "So, let me get this straight; we are basically getting speed-lessons on how to be a successful nuzlocker by two trainers who both became who they are now in only two years?"

Rooxie finally found himself able to speak. "Exactamundo. The only trainers that stand in our way our other sponsored trainers and the elite four members… including the champions of each of the region."

"Took think you two are that close to becoming the very best," I replied back. "And it only took you two years."

"That's what makes you two incredibly lucky," Rooxie replied. "Now, what she we do first, Robert?"

"Whaddya mean, Roox?" Robert replied with a small grin. "Oh, you think we should give them the basics of nuzlocking?"

"Yes, Robert, that is exactly what I mean." It took both of these two a few moments to realize that Yinca was growling under our conversation. She seemed rather… out of it, to say the least. All of us stopped talking to hear Yinca continue to growl, and with each passing second the growling only got louder and louder. "Jeez, look what Conrad brought to the party; a friggin houndoom."

"Oh, her name is Yinca," I replied back. "Don't worry about her growling; she's been like this since last night. I don't know why-" I lied, of course, "-but she is still battle-ready."

Robert kneeled down next to Yinca. He wasn't exactly grinning like Rooxie was; rather he was actually rather disturbed and confused. He tilted his head over in slight confusion at the sight of the Houndoom, almost like he had seen her before. "This houndoom looks rather trained, in my taste. Conrad, have you trained her before?"

"Well, not much, really," I replied back. "Now that you bring that up, I got her when she was houndoom."

"That's weird." Robert began to get closer to Yinca, but the houndoom only barked back, trying to warn him to stay away. "I think I've seen this houndoom before… can you please tell me where you got it?"

"Oh, sure!" I replied back with a smile. "I was somehow able to get her by-" Before I could finish my sentence, Arreka suddenly covered my mouth with her hand. I was startled by the sudden movement; scared stiff. I didn't actually see it coming so my only natural reaction was to flail backwards in fear. I landed butt-first onto the ground, and Yinca quickly came to my aid. "Arreka, what the-!" I tried to yell back, but she still had her hand covering my mouth, and she decided to speak for me.

"It's a family secret, sorry. Honestly, if you hear it, then you'll think my little bro is a teensy weensy insane." Both Robert and Rooxie were frozen silent from the sudden action that my sister committed. It was too odd, especially when it's during our very first meeting with the two of them. "Trust me, it's a very weird story, you wouldn't want to know about it anyways."

"I see…" Robert replied with an understanding answer, but I could easily tell by his tone of voice that he wasn't satisfied. Even so, Arreka took it as an understanding statement altogether and finally let go of me. I felt sort of deprived of my freedom, honestly. I really wanted to tell them how I met Yinca all those years ago… I want to tell you guys, but there's a time for everything, I guess. "Anyways, I think we should get going; we want to make some progress before it gets too dark."

"Agreed!" Arreka shouted. She ran off ahead to the open roads ahead. The roads went up and down along the short hilltops as other cars ran along the wild roads with ease. Rooxie ran off to try and catch her, but Arreka's eyes were too fixated on the large lake about 500 yeards away. She kept running for it with Rooxie gasping for breath right behind her, but Robert remained with me.

"… Kid," Robert finally replied back. Yinca and I turned our heads over to him. Although I could tell that he was talking to us his eyes were focused on Arreka and Rooxie as they both scampered away. "When Arreka told us about you, I mean she told me everything about you." He finally turned his head towards me, with his face filled with a sense of disappointment. At the time I didn't know why, but I guessed an answer in my head. "If you stall us too much, then you are to leave."

"Pardon, sir?"

"This is also going to be training for Rooxie and I. The both of us are planning on getting stronger in order to defeat the pokemon league. Because of that, I don't want any crybabies soaking up the grass for too many days?"

"Crybabies?!" I yelled in anger. "Soaking up the grass?!"

"I know what you'll hesitate in killing a pokemon." I recoiled back, freaked out that he knew the answer that I guessed in my mind. "We don't just take every person onto a nuzlocke journey, because sometimes we might have to run into a bunch of people that are too afraid to literally crush some skulls. I don't want you to hold us up. Today, you might not be ready to kill, but sooner or later you better get used to it, ok?"

I didn't give him an answer. There was a bitter silence between the two of us. I found no need in myself to answer, for I didn't want to answer. Suddenly, I began to hate that man. Calling me a crybaby? For what reason? Just because I don't want to end the life of an innocent being? At the moment I couldn't understand him, but after a few more moments of unsettling silence I nodded my head yes.

"Good," He finally replied. A smile finally drew back on his face, making the sudden bitterness of anger retreat from his face. "Now, shall we follow our eager-beavers?"

Arreka was enjoying the fresh air around her. The paths we strolled along were coated with old, but fresh and yellow dirt. The sight of worn-down soil that finally constructed this easily-navigatable path must've taken a few years to make. No cars ran along this path, for a highway was far away from where we were. We've been walking for hours, and not a single pokemon had been in sight.

There were no chirps, there were no sounds of any frolicking fish pokemon in the rivers beside us. There were no sounds of small pokemon scampering across the ground, and the sound of any living being seemed to not be present in our ears. The only sound that came to mind were the sounds of the breeze gently blowing against our ears as the trees around us slowly dances on this grand day.

Yinca, the group, and I were the only living beings that were visible. Yinca remained close to me while Rooxie and Robert watched Arreka run ahead and observe the environment around her. "This is the furthest away from the city I've ever been!" Arreka exclaimed. She inhaled with her nose, took in a large, long breath. When she began to exhale, Rooxie stopped us in our tracks.

"Did you hear that, Robby?" Rooxie's eyes were wandering around anxiously for something. He pulled out a red and gray sphere. The sphere, with the press of a button, grew a few times in sizes until it was finally the size of a baseball. This was a pokeball; the container used to turn pokemon into bits of energy and then stored into the spheres called pokeballs.

Rooxie quickly tossed Arreka and I two yellow pieces of tech. He instructed us to quickly place them on the pokeball, and in an instant, I noticed that Yinca began to envelop in a small, almost-hardly noticeable yellow aura. Before I could ask Rooxie what this aura was, he replied almost instantly. "That's the effect of that piece of tech," Rooxie began. "Now, your pokemon will behave just like a nuzlocker's pokemon; it can kill other pokemon, but, in turn, its fainting stage will be removed, enabling pokemon to actually get 'hurt' and die."

"Hurt?" I asked. I already knew about the concept of death in nuzlocke battles, but what did Rooxie mean exactly by hurt? Pokemon already got hurt during pokemon battles, when they battle to the faint, but the last time that was popular in this region was many years ago. "But, don't they usually get hurt even with the fainting stage on?"

Robert intervened. "I think I should explain this to Conrad." He stepped in front of Yinca and me while Rooxie continued to keep watch. I knew that Rooxie was trying to find whatever made that sound, but what Rooxie planned on doing to the source was a mystery to me. "Conrad, when a pokemon is being affected by the capabilities of this piece of tech, pokemon get hurt, but in a different sense. You see how humans get cuts and we might even lose a limb if gashed by a sword? And you know how our bodies would get crushed with our bones shattering if we were being crushed by a very heavy being or material?"

"Um… yeah."

"Well, pokemon not only have their fainting part of them removed, but also their capability of not getting wounds. Pokemon only get cuts and less protective body parts after they faint. Therefore, if we remove the fainting feature-"

"-Then their bodies will behave almost like a human's?" I asked. I was beginning to think of this as a little sadistic. That's the nuzlocke for you; painful, and probably packed with sins to boot. I began to wonder if I was going to get a huge batch of karma for this, but soon after I stopped, knowing that this time in particular was anything but the right time to think about this.

"Correct, Conrad." Although Robert seemed cheerful with his response. I certainly felt anything but that emotion.

Rooxie suddenly let out a small gasp. He turned his head over to Robert and whispered, "We got a small pack around here, Robby!"

"Good," Robert replied. He looked over to Arreka and signaled her to come towards us. Once she did, Robert began to whisper small commands over to us while Rooxie began to whisper the descriptions of the 'pack' he saw. From under his breath, Rooxie described pokemon that were purple in fur-color with diamond-shaped yellow outlines. There mouths were yellow, and apparent they had pinkish noses. I quickly took a look over to where Rooxie was, and I noticed that he was mostly describing the larger pokemon.

Around the larger feline pokemon, which were liepards, I noticed that purloins were near them too. Obviously, there were only kid pokemon, which were trying to stay close to their adults while in a pack. I started to question this, for I knew that, in my studies, liepards weren't ones to hunt in packs; canines were usually the ones to hunt in packs. This behavior startled me a bit, but Rooxie and Robert seemed far to exited.

"Ok, Arreka, Conrad,-" Robert began as he started shooting out commands. "You two are going to watch us pick off the adults, and when the purloins are open, you two are going to have to go in for the kill."

We were going to do it; there was nothing stopping us now. The plan ahead of me was now set, and nothing except a simple no was going to change that. I didn't want to participate, but I remembered what Robert told me earlier; he didn't want me to waste his time. Slowly, I took in a deep sigh and decided to follow along with his command. Arreka, on the other hand, seemed to take this easily. "No problem," She replied with an eager tone in her voice. "My combusken will surely knock the teeth out of those kitties."

"You have a combusken?" I asked. This proved to me that Arreka had already done some previous training. Combuskens were basically chicken-like pokemon which stood on their hind legs. They had long, yellow-feathered arms with three talons at each end of them. There was one thing stuck in my mind about this assault, and that was the pokemon we were fighting; last time I checked, liepards and purrloins were normally inhabited in the Unova region, a region that is an incredible distance away. At the time, I was confused as to why they were even here in the first place.

Arreka didn't seem to pay attention to that fact and simply replied with an excited 'Yes.'

Rooxie intervened into the conversation, "The liepards and purrloins are dark types, so a combusken will be a great choice for a battle. Robby and I will be using one of our pokemon. The adults are noted to being pretty powerful, so I doubt either of you will stand a chance alone against them."

"Gee, thanks for the trust," I replied sarcastically.

"Rooxie and I know what we're going to do; we're going to fight the liepards, preferably make them scatter so that the both of you can start training on those purrloins near them. They should be easy pickings, especially for Arreka."

"Any questions?" Robert quickly asked that question. I wanted to re-ask the question about wanting to back out in the middle of the fight. Even though I didn't want to be considered a waste of time to him I still had to consider my mindsets first. However, before I had the chance to say anything in the matter, Arreka quickly shouted out, "Lets do this!" I found her way too annoying, but before I could try to regain my train of thought the three of them called out their own pokemon.

Arreka tossed her pokeball straight up into the air. The red and gray sphere opened, revealing a red, glowing aura that gleamed against the sun as it emerged from the pokeball. The energy began to morph into a being, and that being formed into a combusken. The pokemon had successfully been called out from its pokeball. Like Yinca, I noticed an incredibly faint aura coming from it.

Robert and Rooxie did the same. Robert tossed out a pokeball revealing a weird bat-type thing. The bat was purple and possessed four wings; two big ones and two smaller ones on the bottom. The wings flapped at an incredible pace, and its yellow eyes and large mouth seemed to scare me to an extent. Rooxie's pokeball revealed a red/orange dragon with a tail glowing with a strong fire. The dragon was a bit taller than me, and its large wings began to beat with a powerful wind flowing around us with each beat of the wings.

I knew those pokemon far too well; Robert had released a crobat while Rooxie released his charizard; two very strong pokemon. Yinca remained at my side, still growling at Robert with the growls still growing in amplitude with each passing second. "Um," I mumbled. "Guys, I think we should wait for a min-"

Robert, Rooxie, and Arreka were incredibly anxious to get this started and over with. The liepards and purrloins were now in sight, and there was no way in heck that I had any chance of stopping their tracks. This was their choice now, and all I could do now was follow right in their footsteps. The pokemon charged over at the pack of purrloins and liepards while Yinca remained with me, prancing at a slightly quick pace to make it look like she was doing something.

Before the liepards and purrloins had any time to react the sounds of the charizard's incredible roar echoed throughout the area around us. The trees trembled as the earth around us shook with the roar's sound racing across the land at incredible speeds. The pack looked over at us, and within one moment later I noticed their faces; complete terror ran across their faces.

Suddenly, I noticed an elder of the pack look over to us. This liepard in the pack stood out because of its large battle scars that ran across its body. The old creature had wrinkles on his face, which made me believe that not only was this pokemon experienced, but incredibly old as well. Rooxie and Robert only saw this as an act of aggression and began to instruct their pokemon's attacks.

"Charizard, use flamethrower!"

"Crobat, air slash!"

Rooxie's charizard was the first to charge. The strong dragon charged over at the elder liepard with strength written all over him. The liepard slowly got into his battle position; he knelt down his head and kept his rear up, readying himself for a strong pounce. Charizard jumped into the air for a moment, preparing to do an aerial flamethrower attack on the pokemon. I didn't want to watch; this was going to be excruciatingly painful for the pokemon; they were going to get burned alive!

Before the charizard let off its power flames, the elder liepard quickly pounded, slamming its head into the charizard's stomach. The impact echoed across the battlefield, and by the look of charizard's face, I knew that it did severe damage. However, even though the attack went through, it still wasn't enough to cancel the flamethrower. Instead of unleashing the attack on the pack, Charizard unleashed the flames onto the elder liepard.

A long, painful scream was heard from the burning liepard. My heart was beginning to skip beats, and Rooxie, Robert, and Arreka only continued onto their battle. They didn't even seem to care; it was like they were used to this! The screams, to this day, marked the beginning of the end of my previous choice. I wanted this to stop, for I knew this pokemon's fate wasn't going to be great. That charizard had the capability of killing the liepard, eradicating that pokemon's fainting stage.

As the charizard landed, the burning pokemon continued screaming. I wanted to do something, anything to help that pokemon. I was too scared; I couldn't even budge a movement. All I could do was watch as the pokemon slowly burned alive in front of me. The screams began to get quieter as the rest of the pack's screaming and yells began to increase in amplitude. My heart continued to skip more beats, and Yinca didn't like what was going on either. Her growls were increasing intensely.

The pack soon scattered. Without their elder, or leader, so to speak, they knew that there wasn't much hope for the rest of their pack. The liepards got separated from the purrloins, for their fear was so great that they forgot about their children in the one moment fear overtook them. By the time they figured out that they had forgotten something incredibly important their bodies would get gashed by the crobat's air slash attack.

Blood flew around the battlefield. Yinca and I were just watching it happen in front of our eyes. Yinca began to slowly move forward, for she was ready to do something. Robert looked over to me confused; he didn't understand my increased amounts of guilt and fear. I was doing nothing while those pokemon were dying in front of me. In moments, the pack of about 40 pokemon in total was decreasing to 20 in a matter of minutes.

Crobat and Charizard were making their deaths too easy. Only occasionally were the liepards able to land a few scratches of hits against the assailants. Their attacks were all for naught, as their corpses and blood soon littered across the battlefield.

There were mostly purrloins left; the younglings were now separated from their parents, making themselves easy targets for Arreka's combusken and my houndoom, Yinca. There was one problem… I didn't want to participate. What I was seeing… it was just too much. It was just too much! Tears began to roll from my eyes as blood continued to flow and as more bodies continued to roast while the pokemon were still alive. I couldn't help myself; my composure fell apart.

Arreka ordered her combusken to keep using the move double kick. One by one, the purrloins were kicked in their faces with the powerful and deadly move, double kick. The combusken slammed its talon into them over and over again until their demise was eventually seen. Arreka didn't seem phased at all; she was used to this too… she was used to seeing all the needless death and blood.

"Double kick!" Arreka kept ordering. "Come on, Combusken! Show those Purrloin who's boss!"

"Charizard, keep them ablaze!" Rooxie ordered.

"That's it!" Robert yelled cheerfully as the crobat continued to slash into the liepards' bodies. Blood continued to splatter from their bodies as they cringed in pain. Another liepard was able to sneak behind and leap onto charizard's back, quickly using fury swipes in an attempt to save what remained of its pack. The charizard began to fly out of control, quickly performing loops in the air to try and shake the liepard off. Charizard finally flew high into the air, soaring into the skies as the liepard continued to hold on for dear life. Faster and faster, the charizard continued to fly up into the sky.

It was then that I noticed something… that liepard was losing its grip.

Anger swept right through me in an instant. My brain was back to functioning normally again, and I finally decided to say one of my favorite phrases. "Fuck this," I exclaimed. The three other trainers were too focused on the battle to hear me. "Yinca, you also getting tired of this?!" I yelled out to her. Anger kept swelling my heart; I could no longer control my emotions, for this was too much for me to handle. Yinca acknowledged what I meant, and in an instant, she sprinted off into the battlefield. I looked up into the air and watched the charizard continue its long climb into the air…

And finally, the inevitable happened.

That liepard lost its grip. It's screamed pierced the heavens as it continued to lose altitude. Slowly, the pokemon tossed and turned into the air, and Robert and Rooxie didn't even pay much attention to it; they were ready to give charizard the next order. Quickly, I pulled an extra pokeball from my pocket; I knew what I had to do; if I were going to do something, at least make me able to save one life.

"Arceus, don't fail me now!" I screamed out. I launched the pokeball into the air, fearing that the pokeball was going to miss. I knew the move was too risky to make, for there was a high percentage that the pokeball was going to miss its target; the falling liepard. Quickly, I looked over to Yinca, watching her as she continued to eye at the trembling remains of the pack. There were about 9 members of the liepard/purrloin pack left, with 5 of the members being purrloin.

Finally, Yinca began to hear Robert Kitsune yell out another command to his crobat. The crobat was about to comply, but that was when Yinca sprinted into action. In not even a moment, Yinca sprinted over to the crobat and leaped into the air. The large, purple bat didn't even see it coming. Yinca opened her mouth as she approached the victim in the air, and in an instant she slammed her mouth on crobat's head.

Gasps from the trainers were heard, and the remains of the pack stopped panicking to take a look at what was happening. Arreka and Rooxie were now too focused on what was happening to crobat, giving me time to react. Suddenly, I heard something in the air; the pokeball somehow had made contact with the falling purrloin. The pokemon was caught in my pokeball, and the pokeball didn't even shake three times, which was an oddity to me. I let the pokeball fall into my hands, and after that… you'd think I would be grinning at the thought of catching a pokemon… but I didn't have the happiness to grin.

Lives were being lost around me. Even though these pokemon were exactly owned by any trainer, I knew that those lives were innocent; I had this… feeling inside me.

As I caught the pokeball, I found myself the opportunity to signal the pokemon for an escape.

"Get out of here!" I yelled out. The pack turned their heads over to me. They heard me… and I quickly pointed to the forests behind me. "Run! Get away from these people! Save yourselves and I'll handle this!" I didn't have to tell them twice; they were off, sprinting into the forests behind me. The pokemon looked oddly at me, confused at my behavior.

Robert and Rooxie were too occupied with Yinca's actions. Arreka and her combusken were screaming at Yinca, begging her to let go of the 'poor thing.' Rooxie was about to order his charizard onto the creature, for he was prepared to end Yinca's life if she didn't let go. I quickly ran over to her, and as I got closer I noticed that the crobat in question was suffering.

The wings on the creature were spazzing out, and small squeaks were heard from it as blood poured from where Yinca was crunching on. Yinca, with each passing moment, was pressing down harder and harder on the crobat's head; I had never seen her like this… ever. So much anger filled her eyes that it even sent a shock through my body. I couldn't move for a good five seconds.

Finally, I ran over to her, quickly placing the captured liepard into my pocket. I wrapped my arms around Yinca, tugging her backwards in an attempt to get her off the crobat. "Yinca, that's enough!" I yelled. "Let 'em go!"

"Get that motherfucker off my partner!" Robert yelled out.

"That thing's gonna be a dead bitch soon if she doesn't let go!" Rooxie screamed. I looked over to Arreka for a second, and she was tearing up; she knew that my actions were going to lead to consequences. It didn't take rocket science for me to discover that every action has its own consequence…

Finally, after more yelling, Yinca let go of the crobat's body. I quickly returned Yinca back into her pokeball, cursing at her under my breath. I didn't think that she would go all out on the pokemon, but I guess I should've at least assumed the possibility of this occurring. This was my fault; another life was too deeply in the balance because of my inability to control my emotions and think ahead.

As I placed Yinca's pokeball in my pocket, I noticed that blood was continuing to flow from crobat's head. His wings began to slow down, and he still remained on the ground... lying there… Robert was tearing up; he was now facing the consequence for his actions… or karma. For killing so many other lives, he was now going to lose the life of his partner…

I was beginning to find the unfairness in this… trainers cry after their pokemon in question dies, yet they find no guilt in destroying the lives of pokemon families in the wild. I once read in a newspaper that nuzlockers kill off at least 5,000 pokemon a year for their trainer… 5,000… and to think that they wouldn't find any sort of guilt in response to that.

Rooxie and Arreka only looked away from the pokemon and trainer as the last breaths of the pokemon came from the soon-to-be corpse. Robert knew it was too late to save him; no potion could heal the wounds anyways because bones were already crushed from Yinca's hard bite and too much blood was lost…

Robert soon rose up from his state of depression. He turned over to me with his face covered in nothing but rage and sadness. Tears continued to flow from his eyes, and which each moment passing by, the tears slowly dripped onto the ground. Robert began to breath heavily as he continued staring at me; it was like he was planning on murdering me or something!

Finally, Robert spoke. "… Give me… that houndoom."

At first, I was puzzled why he would even want the pokemon that murdered his partner, but within a few moments I soon realized what his plan was. He saw himself as the boss of me; he probably thought that he had the authority to control what pokemon I could keep and not keep due to this incident. I knew what he was planning to do with Yinca wasn't going to be pretty, so I replied with the obvious answer. "No."

"Excuse me?" Robert asked. Rooxie and Arreka only continued to stand still, watching as the crobat slowly drifted off into its deep slumber. "You WILL give me that damned houndoom! Now give it here!"

"I said no."

"GIVE IT!"

"No!"

Robert was beginning to lose it. "I swear to Arceus, Conrad, if you say no to me one more time I will kick the living shit out of you. Now, do you get what I am telling you?!"

"Yes."

"So… are you going to give me that damned murderer of a houndoom!?"

I expected the worst; I took his words as the truth. I was responsible for the death of his partner; so of course he was serious in what he was saying. Slowly, I took in a deep breath, trying to move on from expecting the worst. "… No…"


	4. 3 - Consequences

*August 7, 2008; Nighttime*

From what I last remember, the dreary sun was finally beginning to set itself among the horizon, hiding behind the hills and forests that lay miles long. The heat around my body began to drop slowly as the sun's soothing warmth began to vanish from me completely. The night sky greeted me with its unforgiving cold as I lay limp on the ground, keeping my eyes nearly shut.

I didn't want to witness the faces of the people around me, but as I look back at this moment I picture myself as another soul just watching as the violence appears in front of me. My distant soul doesn't even look away; it keeps looking over at me as trickles of blood left from my nose. The blood was cooling down as it touched the cold air around me, and I felt pressure gripping itself on my shirt.

Slowly, I felt someone beginning to hold me in the air. Robert's voice woke me up from my near-slumber, "Wake up and face me like a man!" His voice was roaring at me as my eyes slowly opened up, revealing his face. His face was covered in the red liquid as it trickled down his face. Small bits of blood were covering his hands as he curled them into fists.

I only smiled back, feeling the blood from my nose fall into my opened mouth. Once the blood treated me to its temporary warmth, I felt a sudden force slam me in the head. The blood on Robert's hand and face wasn't his, for I wasn't even fighting back. I figured that I had no real reason to; Yinca was safe, and there was no way I would just let him take Yinca from my pocket. I felt like I needed to reserve energy for keeping Yinca safe in my pocket.

Arreka was screaming my name, but Rooxie held her back. Tears were falling from her eyes as Rooxie continued to yank on her arms, forcing her back to his side with each forceful pull. "Robert, stop it!" She kept yelling. Robert showed now signs of retreating his fist. Finally, I gave him a wider smirk and simply asked 'for another.'

I was so stupid. The fact that I thought that I didn't need to fight against him only made me the biggest fool out of the four of us. I should've faught back; I should've given Robert everything that I had got. No matter how stupid the decision was, I still kept myself from fighting back. I had this one mindset in my head; this one… foolish mindset that I continued to grip to.

Robert didn't take my grin too kindly. Once again, for the 12th time… I counted… he slammed his fist into my face. Blood flew into the air as red droplets of it were sprayed onto his sleeve. He didn't care about it though; it was almost like this was a normal thing for him.

The force of the punch slammed me against the ground. The sudden drop made the air I had flow from my lungs in an instant. I lost my breath, and in the few moments I had I quickly gasped for more air until finally closed my eyes again, wanting to keep this image out of my mind.

Like I said earlier, whenever I look back onto this day I only see myself as a bystander watching as an innocent kid continues to get whaled on. I kept thinking to myself that its only because that I knew that the kid was alright… but I don't even trust myself; I still don't believe that is the main reason why I just picture myself standing there. I'm a weird man… everyone referred to me as one.

Arreka's cries for freedom kept echoing into my ears. A sudden drowning sensation filled my brain, and I quickly coughed out the liquid that remained in my throat. Puddles of the coughed up blood soon formed on my shirt. Robert still hated Yinca, and he knew that I was the only person in his way that would keep him from 'getting his revenge.' "Fuck you," I coughed out slowly.

Robert only stood there, nodding his head with a 'no' movement. "You just want yourself to get beaten up," He mumbled to me. He pulled me back up to his height and pulled back on his blood-soaked wrist, and I just remained there, waiting for the cycle to keep going through, hoping that something was finally going to break the long, painful, and dangerous cycle.

Arreka let out one last cry, finally kicking Rooxie in the 'private area.' Rooxie shrieked in pain as he flew onto the ground, covering the inflicted area with his hands. Robert turned his head over to Rooxie, watching as Arreka continued to dash over to me. Robert only dropped me, retracting his fist. Finally, the cycle had stopped.

My sister dropped down to my side with tears still flowing. Slowly, I turned myself onto my stomach, letting out gasps of pain and agony. With the remains of my energy, I pressed my arms against the ground, forcing myself onto my knees. I began to take long, painful breaths as Arreka had her arms wrapped around me. I felt warmth again, and slowly I began to feel myself getting more and more dazed.

Arreka turned her head over to the slow-retreating commiters of the crime. Robert pulled Rooxie back to his feet, but Rooxie shoved Robert away. He probably thought he didn't need any help from him. Arreka began to scream angrily at the two of them. "You two are awful human beings!"

Robert and Rooxie didn't even reply. Robert began to wash off my blood from his hands by rubbing them against his shirt. Rooxie didn't even bother to give me a look. Arreka was furious. "How could you even consider hurting my little brother!? Who the hell do you think you are!? He comes with us on our journey, and on the first night you two just find it in yourselves to let my little brother get beat up!?"

Robert's anger rose up again. "I'm the owner of that crobat! You know, the one that is now dead, thanks to that kid's stupid houndoom! If she didn't even barge in on our grinding, then I wouldn't have even considered laying a finger on him!"

"Either way, you have no right to treat my brother like that, especially how my family helped you out through your stupid money problems!"

Rooxie finally snapped. "Hey, bitch! You don't say that in front of the kid! He's not supposed to freaking know about that crap. Besides, you heard Robby; that kid got his partner killed, right in front of his eyes no less. If that isn't a reason to seek revenge than I don't know what is!"

Arreka couldn't hold in her anger anymore. She stomped her foot onto the ground, causing dirt and old soil to fly through the air like dist. Her head began to glow red with anger, and Robert and Rooxie only stood there, watching as I finally got myself to my feet. "You two are insane! Just shut up!"

The argument was being taken over by Robert and Arreka now. Rooxie and I were now the bystanders, watching as the better of us four were going at it. Arreka was flailing her arms around as she yelled, stomping on the ground more and more as she spoke. Robert kept his arms at his sides, but his hands were nearly fists. At peeks of anger, he would curl them up harder and harder as the argument between them got more ferocious.

"If you even think hurting my brother is justifiable, then you are just one sick and twisted man!"

"I'm sick and twisted? I'm just seeking revenge, is all! I don't see what's wrong with simply doing what I feel is right!"

"The problem is that it isn't even right, you dolt!"

"How is it not right!?"

"You aren't allowed to hurt my brother, and that's that! And you did it anyways!"

"You didn't answer my question!"

"I don't need to!"

"Answer it!"

"NO!"

"YES!" Robert screamed back.

"NO" Arreka shrieked with all her might.

"Prove to me that wanting to kill the pokemon that killed my pokemon isn't justifiable!"

"It's because you aren't afraid to hurt my brother in the process!"

Finally, I got myself to become involved. The arguing was getting too much. I had become too sensitive to bear any more of this loud and irritating argument. As soon as I moved no more than an inch, Arreka turned away from Robert, focusing her time and energy on me now. I could barely even stand. Although the fists were pounding against my nose earlier, I felt amazing amounts of weakness now residing in my legs. No matter how hard I tried, it seemed like every time I moved my foot, it took so much more energy than it originally needed. I grew too sensitive to my own movements, which I soon despised. Hatred now filled me like a shaken up root beer bottle. "Robert, you have no right to say that, especially after the grinding session that all of you yourself commited today."

"What are you talking about?" Robert said as he frowned. His hatred for Yinca was easily noticeable. I could tell by the vibes I received from those 12 punches that he still felt like 12 weren't enough. "I told her that what I did to you and what I was planning for your stupid mutt was justifiable."

"No," I simply replied. The tone in my voice darkened like the landscape among us. It was like Mother Nature began to fill me up with nothing but dark emotions. I shook my head to him, and replied with a sigh while saying. "If that's the case, than if those liepards killed your crobat instead of Yinca, then you would say that there actions were justifiable, since you killed so many of them when they were simply just trying to live!"

"That's different!" Robert yelled back.

"Idiot!" I yelled back at him. I somehow found energy in myself to slap him right across the face. No signs of regret showed on my face as my skin slammed into his face. He felt the pain, as he covered his face with his hand in a matter of moments. "Do you really think that's different? Death is death, no matter how you put it. It isn't justifiable. The only way it is justifiable is if the reasoning behind it makes sense, you moron!"

"Yes! Exactly!" Robert yelled back. "I wanted to kill Yinca for revenge!"

"Yes, after she got sick of you treating that pack of liepards and purrloins like they were nothing to you!" I yelled back. "Lives were tossed about, burned, shredded, and for what?! For you to simply gain more power for your pokemon? That's shameful! I can't even describe how shameful that is! You kill many others for your own selfish means, and that, my friend, is not justifiable for the thousands of deaths that you committed to this very day."

Robert's rage was unleashed upon me in no less than a mere second. He lashed out, punching me square in the face. Blood again flew from my nose as I found myself on the ground in an instant. Robert only turned away from me, with Rooxie and Arreka still watching me with either worried or hatred-filled eyes. "You have no right to deem me as shameful," Robert replied. "You're nothing more than a weak, cowardly, trainer, who is afraid to 'take of their gloves' to gain success. This is the nuzlocke, boy! So deal with it, or leave, and you might as well take you sister with you. There is no way in hell she will join us."

I got quiet for a moment and only looked away. My eyes began to scroll along the dirt path that we previously walked on. I knew that Arreka was already too far on this journey with those two, even though it was a journey I disliked. I let off a sigh, but I didn't even take another gander at the three of them; I only started walking. With a hand on my nose, still trying to clog up the bleeding, I began walking back on the path that we already took to get here.

Robert and Rooxie didn't say anything, but for some reason I was still surprised. Arreka didn't move, which I found weird considering that he wounded brother (me) was about to walk off all alone with a gushing nose with only 1000 pokedollars to his name. I never got why she stayed, nor did I understand why she didn't at least say goodbye to me on that day.

Something was on her mind, but at the time I never knew why. I didn't see their faces; I didn't see whatever reactions they had to me just walking off after that argument. However, I was able to feel something; I could feel that the tension around me finally dropped a bit. I was happy, but the pain on my nose was forbidden me from smiling. The pain was too much, but I was able to gain back my walk. I guess all I needed to do was 'walk off' the pain.

It had been a few hours since I began walking away from those three. The darkness of the night soon took over my sight, almost making me unable to see more than ten feet in front of me. Every time I exhaled, the warm air I breathed was able to be seen in the cold night. Even though I had left those three with my own choice, I suddenly felt a slight feeling of regret.

I just ditched my sister; left her with two people that were complete strangers to me. So far, I've seen what their pokemon are capable of, and now I know that they'll be even harder on her than before… and all because of me. All because I wasn't quick enough or didn't care enough to save that crobar; the crobat Yinca killed. I was glad that another murderer was obliterated, but that pokemon was Robert's friend, and now my sister might've been paying the price for my actions while I just ran away…

Through the cold night, the only pokemon giving me any sense of warmth was Yinca. With her being a fire-type pokemon, just being around her made it feel like I was walking next to a living campfire. However, I soon began to realize that this campfire was going to only get bigger as we continued to walk on. As I walked beside her, her growls roared, and it was like her entire being became unstable. She was rampaging, almost. She was running around me, growling, howling at something. If I could only ask her why… but at the time, I couldn't; humans don't understand pokemon speech, but pokemon understand ours, even if humans are speaking different languages.

I've never understood; heck, many people considered it to be an amazing phenomenon. However, despite how much emphasis many people put into that fact, humans nowadays only take it for granted instead of pausing for a moment, and truly being thankful for this amazing gift that allowed us to at least be understood by such amazing creatures.

Even then, with Yinca still letting off her steam, I still felt like keeping her outside her pokeball. As I walked down this path, I realized just how alone I was. There was no one else around me; only my pokemon to keep me company. I should appreciate Yinca more.

I looked over to her, watching as her anger soon began to disappear. She looked over at me, finally giving me a smile, a worried smile, but a smile nonetheless. She slowly walked over to me, leaning her head in front of me, allowing her to pet her head. Gently, I began to pet her, sliding my hand from top to bottom of the back of her head. I did this repeatedly, and I began to notice that she was calming down more…

However, I began to realize that she wasn't doing this for her-so that she could get a comfortable pat-… through the years of us knowing eachother, she knew that, whenever I felt upset, she would sit or remain next to me and allow her to pet her. Doing it now only reminded me of our more innocent years together. Even though she was a houndoom-a presumed pokemon of the devil-she had the heart of the grandest angel.

Something finally clicked on in my head. The cold breeze was making an object in my pocket sway. I reached down, grabbing the object out of my pocket. It was a pokeball. I began to stare at it, remembering the source of the pokemon inside it; the liepard I saved. I let off another sigh, placing it back into my pocket.

Yinca began to whimper, but she also felt a bit confused by my actions. I started off again, trying to prepare a statement to give to Yinca. She had her eyes focused on me with such energy, that it was surprising that she was a pokemon at all; it was as if she was a student listening to a teacher. "Yinca, I honestly have no idea what to do with this thing," I muttered.

Yinca only tilted her head to the side in confusion. I knew that I had to elaborate for her. "This liepard, Yinca. This liepard … I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with her. Sure, I caught her and all, but I know she'll hate me."

Yinca let off a few whines. She felt sorry, but she was still confused. "Listen, what am I even going to say to it, or her, or him?" I began to ask her. Yinca looked away, only to have her eyes now focused towards the direction we continued to walk towards. "I mean, I can't simply say, 'Hey, liepard, although your family, and probably your sons and daughters, are dead, you can still join us!' and I know for a damn fact that I can't say, 'Cheer up! You can make more!" I'll look like a damn fool, also a complete jerk. I know what those statements mean, but I know I'll accidently say offensive statements like that under pressure."

Yinca only placed her head on my thigh. I sighed, not satisfied, making Yinca have a small tear shed from her eye. I felt like she wanted to do more, but she knew she couldn't say anything to me. All she could do was give me body language, and right now I couldn't communicate with body language that much. Words are more complex than just body language, which is sometimes why I wished that she could talk.

"Either way, I know that she'll still hate for not even doing anything until the very last moment," I continued on. "Yinca, I … we… no,… I only just stood there, watching as her comrades, her friends, her parents, her offspring… were getting slaughtered, burned alive!" Tears began to run from my eyes. I couldn't handle what I was saying. Those images… those images of the pokemon getting slaughtered, literally burning alive… they were just too much for me to bear. "How can I face her, or him, if I was responsible for her, or his, continued suffering?"

Yinca growled at me. I took it as that she was angry at my actions too. I only looked away from her, but at that moment she just stopped emoting completely. She began moping, almost like she herself was dissatisfied. There was still something on her mind that she was trying to give out to me. Understanding what she was trying to tell me is another story entirely.

"I'm sorry for doing this in front of you, Yinca," I continued on with a weak tone. "You don't deserve a trainer like me… I can't even properly stand up for what I think is right."

Yinca didn't even bother replying. She knew she couldn't get the right words to give me… she wasn't even able to give human words, so my guess is that she just gave up to the futility that the facts presented to her. She only continued to weep, probably knowing that I might as well be a foreigner to her in terms of back-and-forth communication.

Suddenly, a noise was heard from behind us. The both of us turned around, trying desperately to catch the source of the sound as quickly as possible. We knew we were alone, in the forest. Anyone or anything could be ready to leap right out at us, so we needed to be prepared. However, our efforts proved to be futile. A red 'blur' appeared right in front of me. It came so quickly, but I couldn't react in that time. Yinca, however, dashed away to the side of the path as the blur rushed right by her. Her head spun back, watching as the red blur quickly came to a stop.

I finally turned around, watching as the red canine finally just stared at us. The pokemon had red fur with the occasional black zigzag. There were large patches of yellow fur on his head, probably making itself more of a mane. Its eyes pierced our souls, nearly petrifying me, but only fueling up Yinca's almost-forgotten anger. I knew what this pokemon was; it was another fire type, an arcanine.

This wasn't good; I knew the moment I saw this thing that the chances of our survival were thin as a piece of paper. The arcanaine looked incredibly angry, almost like it was out for blood. I began observing it quickly, watching as it began to stare down… but not at me… but at Yinca. I looked over to her, watching as her eyes were glued to the arcanine's. I began to fear the worst; I didn't think that Yinca was able to overcome this foe.

I continued to examine this beast. I noticed a familiar aura around it; it was the first thing I noticed, even before the bulky and muscle-like physique. The aura was like the aura that used to surround Yinca when she was being tampered by that nuzlocke device. Now I knew where this pokemon came from; this was Robert's; no doubt about that. At that moment, I began to think that he probably sent the pokemon out behind Rooxie's and Arreka's noses, hoping to get me off guard, enabling himself for revenge against Yinca, my houndoom.

Slowly, I gripped my fists. Rage began to fill me once more. "Yinca!" I yelled out to her. She nodded back, ready to take any order I would give her. However, I knew she couldn't do it alone, and odds are the liepard would only flee once I released him or her from the pokeball. So, I chose to do the obvious choice. To the side of the dirt path laid a long, 2 inch thick stick. It was about a meter long; probably fell from the nearest tree.

The arcanaine and the houndoom began to turn their heads to me, staring at me with puzzlement. I walked over to the stick, grasping it with my two hands. I looked over at the arcanaine with my eyes set ablaze. Finally, I got into a fighting stance, bending my legs with my left leg back, my right leg forward, and the left side of my body now facing the arcanine.

Amazingly, the arcanine just remained there, still puzzled. Its face seemed to warp a little, almost like he was confused at what had just happened. Yinca looked over at me with regret all over her face; she felt like she was responsible for dragging me to physically get involved in this. "What's the matter?" I asked the arcanaine, watching as he slowly began to crawl backwards. He didn't know what to do; he didn't a trainer to literally be prepared to actually FIGHT a pokemon. Not many people really did that, and I doubt that the arcanine was given instruction on what to do in this situation. "Fight us!" I yelled out. "Come on! That's what Robert wants, right!?"

The arcanine's face froze. I knew he didn't think that I knew his origin. "That aura gives you away, and I know any nuzlocker wouldn't just send out a pokemon against a trainer that wouldn't even accept their challenge first. But, here's the kicker, why would a nuzlocker go against the rules for once? Well, that's because he wants to get what he wants, and only what he wants; he seeks revenge, am I correct?"

My words got to him. The arcanine, under pressure, finally snapped. He rushed towards the two of us with his paws sending dust flying behind him where he ran. He became the blur again, and rapidly I began to swing my stick wildly in front of Yinca. Yinca was frightened; already I was willing to take a hit for her. Before she could do anything I quickly yelled out a command. "Dark Pulse!"

By the time I uttered that last word, I was flung from where I once stood. The impact shook me up, sending me across the path at great speeds. All the air was taken out of me. My eyes remained wide with shock. Time seemed to slow down as Yinca looked behind her, watching as I flung around like a helpless magikarp.

I made contact with the ground, tossing and turning over and over. With each roll I felt something sting in my body. Random stones on the dirt path began to tear open my skin as I rolled onto them. The dirt dragged some of the skin off my knee, releasing small amounts of blood.

Yinca, from what I saw, was supposed to be the main target of that attack. The arcanine was frozen stiff, probably shocked that I didn't back away from Yinca; it wasn't too common for a trainer to protect their pokemon in such a manner. My odd choice startled it. Yinca's mouth began to open, making a dark and purple aura form from her mouth. The aura began to increase slowly and slowly. Her mouth shook as more power formed from her. Finally, she released the attack onto the arcanaine. The beast now began to bathe in even more darkness.

As my rolling began to slow down I noticed that a pokeball now flung out of my pocket. Yinca fled from the arcanine, dodging an attack, probably an extreemspeed. Extremespeed… the move that was probably used on me. The user becomes a blur, now becoming a speed demon. The user embraces the sudden introduction of increased speed. With more speed comes more ramming power. That was probably the power I felt when the beast collided with me.

Yinca looked back for a moment, watching as the pokeball continued to roll on the ground. Suddenly, the pokeball opened, releasing a ray of white and pure energy that lit up the area around us. The liepard formed from the energy, opening his or her eyes like she had been resting this entire time. The complete change of setting shocked her for a moment, but what scared her even more was the sight of me.

I was hurt all over, unable to defend Yinca for too long. Even though the attacker came head on, I was still blindsided. I felt so useless; unable to protect anyone. The liepard looked over at me, and seemed to remember me. She didn't hiss… she didn't growl… she didn't show me any sign of negative emotion. It was like she was grateful for what I did for her.

A sudden noise broke our glued eyes. Yinca had been hit by an extremespeed. Her herself was being thrown towards me. She slammed right into me as the arcanine continued to run towards us. He showed no sign of slowing down as the thrown houndoom slammed right into me. A sudden shock of pain rampaged through me as her horns stabbed right through my shoulder. Blood began to spew again.

The liepard looked over at the arcanine with tired eyes. He or she was angry, I could tell, but it was still expressing only a tired expression. She was tired of her comrades being tossed around, tortured, killed… The liepard was ready to do something. As the arcanine dashed towards us I noticed that the liepard's yellow paw began to overflow with shadow-like aura. Her paw was covered with purple and dark aura, darker than Yinca's from her dark pulse attack.

I knew what the move was; it was a shadow claw. I watched as the liepard quickly dashed towards the arcanine, leaping into the air with her paw slashing the quick arcanine. Immediately, I noticed that she made contact. Blood flew from the arcanine as it continued its charge. However, instead of running towards us, it dashed right by us; vanishing into the forests.

The liepard somehow had warded the attacker off. My only guess was that he knew that, even though he might have killed at least one of us, he knew he was not a match for all three of us. Suddenly, my head began feel light. The loss of so much blood began to overtake me, if you will. I could not handle it; I began to get tired. The liepard rushed over to the both of us, watching as Yinca quickly took her horns out of my shoulder.

Yinca began to whine loudly as my eyes began to open and close… open and close… I was too tired. I could not stay awake…

The darkness overtook me once more…


	5. 4 - The World Around Me

*August 8, 2008*

Not many people I know could just brush off an experience like that and just forget about it. Although it's not something normal, I tried my best to just forget about it and move on. Because I have my two pokemon still by my side, I knew that I still had protection against anyone that would try to get in my way. Whatever Arreka and the others were doing now as no longer any of my business at the moment; I was going on my own path.

I remember finding myself inside a white bedroom of sorts. The bed I resided in was held up by steel framing and the mattress was somewhat comfortable. There was a clean, refreshing scent lingering in the air, but I couldn't identify the smell. The air around me was cold, so I kept myself concealed under the covers for extra warmth. The mattress was getting comfier by the second, and all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. I began to sink into the mattress again, for I became too comfortable in it. My eyes began to close tightly once again; everything around me just felt so pleasant.

…

…

My eyes popped open. "Pleasant… comfortable?" I whispered to myself. Almost immediately, I launched myself out of the bed. I realized that I had no shirt on, but my jeans were still present. However, there were two things wrong with the situation; firstly, my pokemon weren't anywhere near me, and secondly, I shouldn't be feeling comfortable at all; I just got ransacked by an arcanine last night, plus I got stabbed by Yinca's horns!

I checked all over my body and no wounds were present. It was like I was never injured at all; as if some secret remedy cleansed my body of all injuries. I couldn't even believe what I was witnessing; my wounds were gone!

Finally, after looking around some more, I realized that my belongings were in the furthest corner of the room. There was my backpack, which was stuffed with all the necessities that any pokemon trainer would need, and two pokeballs were placed at the base of the pack. Without properly thinking, I assumed that both of the pokeballs were mine and hat Yinca and that Liepard were still in them. I couldn't even bother thinking clearly, for I just wanted to get the hell out of there; that place freaked me out.

I noticed a random shirt placed by the backpack. It wasn't mine, but I needed some torso attire so I took it without even bothering to leave a note behind saying, "Oh, I stole this, k thx bye." Listen, I'm not saying that I'm not a nice guy, but if you woke up in a new and unknown area with not only your shirt somehow off and gone, your wounds healed, and you were in a rush to get out of the room as soon as possible because you were freaking about because of the whole situation, what would you do?

Oddly enough, I yanked the shirt towards me and slipped it on. I stuck my head through the collar portion of the shirt, followed by me sticking my arms through the sleeves one at a time. It was a long-sleeved shirt; a red one, too. It felt comfortable, but for some strange reason I figured that this was supposed to be given to me anyways. I didn't know why I thought that; I guess I figured that the person who took me in might as well had bought me a shirt anyways.

After grabbing all of my available belongings, I was soon out the door. I suddenly was greeted by the bitter-coldness that existed in the night. My body wasn't used to it, and almost immediately, I began to shiver. Thankfully, my long-sleeved shirt supplied some form of extra protection against the heat, but not enough.

Quickly, I moved my head around to observe my surroundings. I was in a city, coated by the shade of night. The streets were void of human life; leaving behind only cars and trash. It must've been the middle of the night when I left the house. Go figure. The buildings around me were all too familiar, almost like I had seen them only recently… and I did.

It didn't take too much time until I realized that I was back in Rustboro City. It was logical, but I was still left in confusion. "Someone had brought me from the route all the way to here…" I thought to myself as my body continued to shiver intensely. I didn't know why it was colder than usual in Hoenn; it was much colder than what I remember years ago.

The first question that appeared in my mind was, "Where's the pokemon center?" I needed to go there anyways; I figured that my pokemon were still injured from the fight anyways. That liepard also needed to rest and easy recuperation; it had only been a half-dozen hours or so since the liepard lost her fellow comrades.

What those two nuzlocker punks did to me… it was honestly the last thing on my mind. I couldn't care less about how they gave me a bloody nose and almost killed Yinca. I wasn't focused on that. This situation I was in… it was too weird for me. I didn't think that I would be completely healed from my injuries only a few hours since the incident; it just seemed so abnormal.

Finally, I took a few steps away from the building. It was that tall on the outside; it seemed to only have a few floors to it. Upon inspection of the building I realized that the lights were on at the second floor; I could see them through the windows. There wasn't much time for me to act; I knew that, whoever this person was, he or she was going to wonder where I ran off to. I needed to get as far away from the building as I could.

Without much warning, I bolted off. My legs thrusted me along the streets, pushing me off at great speeds. I couldn't stay there; I was afraid of who this person was and what he could've done. I was so naïve; shocked to the point that I would run away from my savior. Odd, really. I guess it is in human nature to run away when you are about to face the unknown.

As I ran along the streets, the signs of any human involvement began to vanish. There were less and less cars at the sides of the streets, and less trash became noticeable. I was now in the less-populated side of the city. I didn't know where I was going; I was too frightened to think of anything logical. The pokemon center didn't seem to be in sight, but I just kept running.

Soon, I heard a small scream. The scream came from the area behind me. I noticed that the second floor lights of the building were now off, and the first floor lights were on. The person who found me must've realized that I left. I didn't even bother to turn back; I just kept running with my heart pounding as more and more oxygen came and left my lungs.

The moon had been shining right over my head. I kept looking up at it as I ran, thinking of it as a sort of directional signal. I just kept chasing it, figuring that it might as well take me anywhere, as long as it is away from that building. I kept going, running quickly through the alleyways and the sidewalks besides the plentiful amount of buildings. It didn't take long, though, for my lungs to run out of breath.

I could no longer run; I had been sprinting for about five to seven minutes at best. I figured that I had given myself enough distance away from that building. I smiled in relief, knowing that I was no longer near that person. I soon slumped over, pushing my body up against my knees to keep my torso suspended so I could take in heaps of air. The cold air kept freezing my lungs as it entered.

Minutes passed… and I already began to feel regretful for leaving the building. The person helped me; healed me of all my wounds. And in return, all I did was run away. Surprising, really; I never thought of myself as that much of a coward. I began to question my own actions. I nearly facepalmed my head, for I soon realized that I might've done something incredibly stupid. However, something inside me was still telling me that I did the right thing.

Either way, I was still incredibly cold. The night's air was still making my body shiver intensely. I figured that I needed a fire-type pokemon near me, and a furred pokemon to keep us warm. From my pocket, I pulled out Yinca's and the Liepard's pokeballs. Quickly, I threw them into the air, watching as the two spheres opened up, releasing two giant rays of energy. I watched as one of the energy rays became a purple cat, a large one. The liepard landed right in front of me, confused for some reason. At the time, I figured that it was probably wondering how I got healed so easily.

Before I could catch any eye of the other ray, I realized that Yinca was already on top of me. She had landed right on me, pulling me down with a playful drop and drag. I found myself on the ground with her, and she was licking my face many times to show affection. She had been giving off high-pitched "whines" which to me meant that she was so happy to see me up that she was crying. I could even see tears falling from her eyes.

"Easy, girl," I said to her as I playfully shoved her off me. "There's no need to get all hyper on me again. I just needed you two out so that I could still have some company."

The liepard didn't seem to be cooperating. It was almost like she was distracted by something. I soon noticed that Yinca was facing the direction that I was running away from. She was letting off 'whines' again, but she had dropped her eyes and tail. These were happy whines; she was sad by something… and I think I figured out what exactly she was sad about.

"You saw the guy?" I asked her. She turned over to me. "Yinca, did you see that man, or woman, before?"

She nodded her head 'yes.' Yinca soon looked over to liepard, with me following too. Liepard was also nodding her head, the same way that Yinca was doing it. "I see… so he or she was watching over you for a bit while I was out, huh?" The both of them nodded again. "Ok, then enlighten me, did you guys witness me getting healed or no?"

Unlike the previous responses, they both reacted with a nodding 'no.' I sighed; I no longer had any idea of how that person… or being, healed me. I didn't know what to do; do I just go back to that place and talk to the guy or should I wait it out and maybe ask around to see if other people heard of this guy?

Finally, the idea hit me. I began to state my thoughts to the two pokemon sitting before me. "Now, obviously, you two did not witness this person healing me, therefore I can easily assume that you don't have any clue what else this person is capable of. Because of that, there is still a bit of fear lingering in my head. Because of that, can you two at least understand why I want to ask around first and then go back?"

There was nothing but silence between the three of us. Not even a reaction came from the two of them… I wanted a simple 'yes' or 'no' nod, but they didn't even give me one. They must've been unsure to the fullest degree. In there minds, they probably figured that I should stay with the person who helped, but at the same time they knew I was right a bit about my own statement.

Finally, Yinca nodded with a yes. The Liepard only looked over at her with an odd face. The liepard began to speak with Yinca, spouting the occasional purrs and hisses, along with the "Lie, Liepard, liep," pokemon speech, where they usually say their own names. It's a bit weird, but I got used to it over time. As long as the pokemon can speak to each other through this action and communicate using their own odd language, then I didn't mind it completely.

Through the conversation, mostly by observing their facial expressions, I came to the conclusion that the liepard was protesting about Yinca's choice. The moment Yinca gave out her nod, the liepard seemed heavily angered or influenced by the answer in a negative way. I guess the liepard and I didn't see eye to eye. The conversation between the two of them began to increase in volume, and soon I returned the liepard back to her pokeball.

Yinca turned over to me, curious as to why I committed the action. "I didn't want to wake up the entire city with your argument," I sighed with a small chuckle at the end. "Come on, Yinca; we have to locate a pokemon center to stay at for the night.

The walk to the pokemon center was long; it was basically at the other side of the city. Both of us probably walked for the total amount of time of two hours. It was probably around 2 or 3 a.m. I was so tired, and Yinca's eyes were slumping downward, occasionally closing and opening, trying to keep herself from falling asleep. You should've seen her face when she saw the pokemon center; she literally ran at her highest amount of speed she could go.

When I entered, I noticed that Yinca was sprawled out on a nearby couch. She didn't want to wait until we located a room for us to stay in. I began to look around, noticing the constant sounds of people complaining. I didn't think that this would happen in a pokemon center; back in my home region the pokemon centers were a lot more peaceful. Yinca somehow found it in her to sleep through the entire commotion that I was soon involved in.

Trainers of all kinds were yelling in the line, and they were screaming at a lady behind the counter. She looked like a Nurse Joy, just like the one from my region… or should I say 'bunch'? The Nurse Joy family is huge; its been noted that almost every pokemon around the four main regions (Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh) has a Nurse Joy. Nobody really took it into thought where this large family came from, but they were accepted into society as great workers at pokemon centers. They would always heal the pokemon using a machine to heal up the pokemon's energy. If the injuries were somehow more severe, then operations would have to take place, or pokemon would have to be taken to a different room.

Like I stated earlier, the pokemon center has lodging, and it's pretty much inexpensive; some people may even refer it as "almost free." Compared to hotels, pokemon centers offer cheap lodging, but the rooms they offer aren't the most comfortable, and they don't supply us with food; that's for the pokemon mart. Either way, the pokemon center in this case was a four floor building, probably big enough to sustain about 100 trainers.

The room around the front desk was almost thrown apart. It looked incredibly disorganized, and the fact that this was the sight of it at my debut of being a trainer… it kinda ruined my hopes of seeing better pokemon centers in this region.

With each passing minute, the yells and cries of trainers continued to rise up in amplitude. The noise of all of them combined was nearly enough to blow out my eardrums, and yet somehow, don't ask me how, Yinca was sleeping right through it. Each trainer was complaining harshly, cursing at the nurse joy and telling her to hurry up. Healing pokemon takes a while, and soon I found myself inclined to help.

Quickly, I ran over to the remaining open side of the counter. I eyed the Nurse Joy as she was tumbling over with many pokeballs in her hands. She could barely keep track of all of them. Plus, I took a look behind the door leading to the emergency rooms; they were packed with different pokemon laid out on stretch beds, each having their own different injury.

I knew that this region had nuzlocking, and because of that horrible piece of tech on a nuzlocker's pokeballs, I soon remembered that pokemon were now like us; easily cut-able and breakable. Other doctors were looking over the pokemon, and they were operating on a few of them while others were hooked up to different machines. It was a horrid sight to see.

I soon found myself continually looking away from that room, but I couldn't stay away. With each look, I was reminded of the many liepards and purrloins that died during that nuzlocke 'grinding' session yesterday. The images of innocent beings being torched to their demise, being cut to pieces, being slashed as their blood scurried away from their bodies… those pictures weren't leaving my mind.

Nurse Joy's speech was left askew; she could barely perform decent sentence structure. She was too nervous from the other people screaming at her. Her arms were shaking, and she continued to tremble slightly as the trainers continued their vocal rampage.

Finally, I remembered why I came up to the desk, and as Nurse Joy finally passed out all of the pokeballs in her arms, I tapped her shoulder. She looked over to me, and, as some trainers were leaving the building, I could hear silent laughs coming from her as tears came from her eyes. She was too happy that some of them were now leaving. "Can I talk to you for a moment, Miss Joy?" I waved her towards me as I ran for the emergency room door.

I swung it open, and soon Nurse Joy came right behind me and followed me. We both scurried through the door as quickly as possible, with me soon locking the door behind. The trainers were soon crowding behind the closed door, banging on it heavily. As I hurried Nurse Joy to the back of the room, one of the doctors pulled out a small microphone, probably connecting to a speaker outside of the ER, or emergency room. "You shall excuse Nurse Joy for the moment. All remaining pokemon in need of healing are in the emergency room, and shall be dealt with immediately." The doctor soon placed down the microphone, and the trainers ceased banging on the door.

Nurse Joy looked over at me and smiled as tears ran down her face. "Thank you, thank you," she repeated to me over and over. She grabbed hold of my hand tightly, but quickly I pulled it away.

"I'm here for mostly question, and you can thank me later."

"I see…" Nurse Joy sniffled.

"Anyways, I wanted to talk to you about a certain man I was involved with a while ago, but now I want to know about that skirmish that just occurred; why were those trainers acting so rough to you?"

"They were…" Nurse Joy paused and sniffled again. She was still recovering from everyone's actions to her, and I knew that I could feel for her pain. No one should suffer through everyone yelling at them while they are doing the best they can at their job. "They were… impatient, I guess."

"Impatient?" I asked sarcastically. "That seems to be an understatement if anything. Nurse Joy, you do realize that, to me, it sounded like they were screaming 'bloody murder' right?"

"I guess…" She quietly replied. I was about to go through the rest of the room, but then Nurse Joy muttered something, and I doubt I was supposed to hear it. Under her breath, she muttered. "They also do it too…"

That turned my attention span right back to her. "So my thoughts weren't just guesses then, hm?" During the conversation, I was wondering since she was a pokemon center nurse, if she liked the fact that almost every day people would bring in nearly-dead to dead pokemon in here and just continue to use them to kill more. The Nurse Joy family was once known for their most sincere love for pokemon, and the fact that a Nurse Joy would be completely fine with nuzlocking… well… it just seemed irrational to me. However, now I know that this Nurse Joy in particular still stuck with the original 'Joy Code' as I would like to call it. "You also dislike nuzlocking?"

"Yes… a lot."

"Define 'a lot' for me, please."

"Everyday, people just keep on coming in with all these severely injured pokemon. Before nuzlocking became legal in this region, situations like these only happened rarely. But… ever since the nuzlocking continued its reign, it seemed like the amount of violence and gore continued to rise up with it. With every pokemon battle, there are trainers that have their pokemon killed or nearly killed to the point that we can't save them."

"Do you feel bad for these pokemon?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" Nurse Joy asked.

"Well, you see, Nurse Joy-" I walked over to one of the pokemon resting under the bedsheets. A machine was hooked up to it, indicating its heartbeat. I noticed that its heartbeat had been going slower with each passing minute. The pokemon that was resting before me was a small, blue pokemon. It looked like a mudfish, and I recall it being known as a mudkip. "-I'm wondering if you see the pokemon involved in this fad as murderers too, or just the trainers."

"Well… it all depends," Nurse Joy replied. "I mean… most pokemon are just really loyal to their trainers, and they are just willing to do whatever their trainers say because of their love to them." Nurse Joy let off a small sigh. "It's a shame, really. I keep thinking that trainers are just abusing the love their pokemon have for them to allow them to get away with whatever they do with them, be it with regular trainers and nuzlocke trainers."

"I can't disagree with you there," I replied back to her. I began to walk over to her, watching as she continued to eye the crowd of trainers surrounding the door. "I mean, have you heard of these private tournements? I heard that they perform pokemon battles in the most wack of places, even in the middle of the ocean while on boats, even in the middle of a storm; they don't even cancel the battle even though the pokemons's lives are at extreme risk."

"Not only that, but before nuzlocking became popular, I recall a certain 'champion' causing a roof to fall on a group of dragon pokemon during a battle, injuring them severely." Nurse Joy looked towards me again. "Three out of five of those pokemon were then deemed 'unable to battle' and were ditched. The two pokemon that were able to battle were, of course, the champion's."

"Who was that champ?" I asked her. "Sounds like a huge dick, if I say so myself."

"I hardly recall her name," Nurse Joy replies. "But I think it was actions like that which started the entire nuzlocke-fad-creation."

"Why's that?" I asked her. She walked towards me, staring me straight in the eyes. Tears continued to fall as they rolled off her chin. Her eyes glimmered as the tears shined from the light's reflection. "I mean… that does sound a bit weird."

"Do you know what the crowd's reaction was to that incident with the champion?"

"The audience was ok?" I chuckled.

"Yeah, the roof just 'so happened' to not fall on any people, but of course all of the pokemon involved in the battle, one already fainted mind you, were covered with roof debris."

"I see…" I couldn't get this new picture out of my mind. Let me try and give you it in my perspective; a battle took place in a closed-roof coliseum. A certain pokemon used a very lethal move that involved objects from above to form, leaving the idea that the objects had to have formed above the ceiling, and then the objects hit the roof, causing the roof to fall in, and cover the pokemon in debris. There was one move that came to mind, and it was a move that only the most powerful of dragon pokemon used… but at the time I couldn't recall the name. "But… what were you going at?"

"The audience loved the battle, despite it leaving the pokemon with many lethal injuries," Nurse Joy continued. "Sure, there was little to no blood, but the pokemon's bones were fractured, like their wing bones and legs. The audience loved the fact that it was really intense and the battle looked, and I quote 'cool and incredibly awesome,' but I thought otherwise."

"What did you do?"

"I protested, of course!" Nurse Joy screamed back at me. All of the doctors in the room stopped for a moment and looked over at her. They were all shocked, and they had a worried expression all over their faces. Soon, I looked back to them and waved them off with a tired face. I wanted to get this process of questioning over with. "I… I couldn't… I was the one that was assigned to take care of those extremely wounded pokemon… and the look on their faces… it was just… it was just…"

Nurse Joy began to weep more. Her cries became silent, but because I was close to her I knew that her cries were much worse than before. She was now ducking her head, covering her face with her arms. Tears were running through them as they soon fell to the floor. "I doubt-" Nurse Joy sniffled, "-I doubt anyone in the audience gave a crap about the pokemon that I had to take in; they mostly just applauded the champion's battling skills, and that dragonite of her's…"

"So, by that, I could assume that she didn't get charged?"

"Oh no, she had to pay for the ceiling damage, but she wasn't even banned from the tournament for extreme actions; she was let off! She had no charges because the people loved her way of battling, and her ways of battling could easily kill pokemon, even if they were in a normal pokemon battle, for arceus's sake!"

"The fact that she nearly killed pokemon and she wasn't a nuzlocke trainer is surprising to me enough… but… I can somewhat see what you're also getting at," I replied back to her. "So, you feel that the nuzlocke battles were founded on the grounds that people wanted more excitement; the thrill of having such a high risk at hand…"

"That is how I see it," Nurse Joy replied back to me. "Trainers want more excitement in their battles, and when their appetites for excitement weren't satisfied for normal battles, I think that they decided to go over to nuzlocke battling."

I looked away from her as I placed my hand under my chin, still pondering about what she had said. "The thrill of killing and risking a death?" I asked myself. I only shook my head sideways at that thought. Nurse Joy only sighed and said, "You don't have to believe me… but just know that I have my own reasons to hate the same thing you do."

I turned my head over to her quickly, surprised that she knew. In my mind, I kept asking; how in the world did she know that I hated nuzlocking? She only looked over at me with a grin and turned away. As she walked away from me, she stated that I could stay for the night, but then she just left. She left the emergency room and closed the door behind her, soon finding herself to be, once again, surrounded by a crowd.

Remembering the mudkip's heartbeat, I soon found myself beside it, hearing the beeps of its heart rate slow down to an even slower pace. There was currently a doctor at the side of the bed, working on the mudkip. He was currently checking the heart rate too, as well as the other wires attached to the mudkip, which probably was supposed to aid in the healing process.

"Excuse me," I began to say to the doctor. He turned over to me with his white work clothing and his protective mask over his mouth. "Why is this mudkip in here? Was it hurt from a nuzlocke battle or something?"

"… I know what you're thinking," the doctor replied. He only continued to work while speaking to me, not even giving me his full attention. "You're thinking that nuzlockes are the bane of existence of the pokemon world, correct? Well, this mudkip wasn't nearly killed from a nuzlocke battle, but a regular battle involving one really awful trainer. Not all battles in this region are nuzlocke battles, you know."

"Pardon?"

Suddenly, a long beep was heard from the mudkip's heart rate machine; it was too late for the little guy. He didn't make it, and that long beep was the sound of its heart stopping. Many doctors shoved me away, trying to keep the pokemon alive. The doctor I was talking to was soon shoved to my direction. He looked over at me with a tired, wrinkled face. I could tell that he was also tired of the many deaths. "Just so you know-," He began to say to me as I began to leave the room. I didn't want to look at the mudkip anymore, for I knew that it became just another corpse... but too early; it looked so young, and its life was taken away from him before he could truly witness a good life. Still, I was able to hear the doctor's last words as I left the room with my head now low.

"-You don't have to be a nuzlocker to be a killer."


	6. 5 - The Mystery Man

*August 9, 2008*

No one really 'knew' the man…  
The person that helped me recover from my injuries… nobody knew him at all…  
I spent all day yesterday looking for any clues about his actions or whereabouts, but everyone around me, no matter if they were trainer or normal inhabitants of the city, they all never knew him well. They at least knew he was a man as well as what he looks like. However, they never conversed with him.

I got different information from the pedestrians, with trainers, shopkeepers, as well as normal civilians. With the trainers, or nuzlocke trainers, whenever a nuzlocke battle was to occur in front of his house, the man would just look at them. The trainers I talked to normally said that he performed this exact pattern with each battle, since, from what I can gather, spread info. about the man on a daily basis.

The man exhibited this pattern of action; he would normally just stand at his first floor window and observe the battle. If the battles were more bloody and gruesome, the man would only shake his head in a depressing manner. When the battle was finished, if the nuzlocke trainers didn't leave with their comrades' corpses almost immediately, the man would run out and shout at them, almost like if they were pesky little kids.

Somewhat, I wouldn't be surprised if I did that. Either way, nuzlockers have this weird ritual to them; whenever their pokemon die in a nuzlocke battle, they tend to bury them, almost like in a burial type fashion. Also, there were certain nuzlocke trainers that I talked to that actually referred to other nuzlocke trainers as bastards because of how they killed his pokemon. To be honest, I always found that behavior, which is surprisingly common in nuzlocke trainers, to be really ironic; they kill thousands of pokemon a year, thinking that it's alright for them to do, but when someone kills one of their pokemon THEN the trainer's like "THIS IS INHUMANE" and all that jazz.

I guess that's one of the reasons why I dislike nuzlocke trainers; the hypocrisy of their actions are just too much for me to bear.

Normal pedestrians described the man to me as an older man in his late 50s. Last time anyone had seen him, which was about a few weeks ago, the man had long, black hair, and always seemed to wear this gray robe. People always keep mentioning about this weird necklace around his neck, though. It was the shape of the ring that surrounds the godly figure, Arceus, which can make me infer that this man is heavily religious… or at least more religious than me.

Shopkeepers are normally the only people that see him out of the house. This man, apparently, knows to leave when nobody is really around. From what I've gathered from the shopkeepers, this man buys in hordes, always expecting times of when he is unable to leave the house, probably because he doesn't know exactly when nobody will be around except for the shopkeepers. The shopkeepers never really understood why the man entrusted them with plain 'outside' sight of the man actually socializing for once, but they got used to his behavior.

Overall, through what I've gathered from the people around here, he's been described as a lonely-old hermit.

Today felt different though. I felt like I somewhat got stuff accomplished but, at the same time, I thought that I only accomplished so little. I was sitting outside of the Rustboro pokemon center with my head looking over towards the resting Liepard lying next to me on a bench. We were observing the people around us, watching as the occasional trainer walked by me.

We've been sitting there for hours, since about 7 a.m. We've been thinking… or at least I've been thinking; at the time, I had no idea what was going on in the liepard's head. She could probably be thinking about her old family for all I know. I'm sorry if I sound complicated in terms of the gender of this liepard, but at the time, I had no idea if it was a boy or a girl, and I really hated it when people addressed pokemon as 'it' almost like they were nothing like objects. Sure, I might've said it a couple of times, but mostly by accident or when I am confused about the gender of a pokemon to a big point. After some thought though, when I was sitting there, I figured that she was female.

With every few minutes passing by, trainers would pass, waving to me with a welcoming smile. Liepard and I would only growl, or in my case, quietly mutter the words, "Fuck off." I really was starting to hate these trainers; I was losing my respect for them with each passing minute, and I began disregarding what Nurse Joy and that doctor told me awhile ago… it just skipped my mind at that point.

I honestly have no idea how those trainers could cause so much bloodshed and yet they can still have a joking smile on their faces. In fact, when a pair walked by me, I noticed that one of them was talking about how they fought Misty, a gym leader in Kanto, which was another nuzlocke region. Apparently, he had his bulbasaur squeeze the staryu to the point that it collapsed, broke into pieces, dying upon the action. Of course, normally there would be a fainting stage, which would've prevented the death and the collapsing part... yet this was an official gym battle in a nuzlocke region, therefore, the gym leaders have to obey to the nuzlocke rules as well.

I didn't feel biased at the time; I've kept looking at the negatives instead of the positives… but the thing was this; I hardly saw in positives in forcing creatures to fight to their demise, especially when there is still the "battle to faint" ruling that we've used since the beginning of pokemon training. It's a shame that people wasted their time creating the type of technology that got rid of the fainting stage and gave pokemon more human qualities, like having their bones and skin break easier as well as giving them the ability to make a wild pokemon miss the fainting stage, acting like it was a nuzlocke pokemon as well.

It was a weird world, and I honestly felt no real reason for me to want to live in it, but for some reason I felt like I still had something to do.

The liepard next to me started to purr, finally raising her head to allow me to pet her. I did so, watching as a large smile came across her face as she stared at me with satisfied eyes. I looked to her, sighing to her face. The fact that it was still only a few days since the death of her family and group… it was just too much for me to bother thinking about.

"I'm sorry, liepard," I muttered to her in a low voice. Her ears drooped, almost like she knew exactly what I was going to say. "If I had the power to stop those three from causing that much harm… I would've tried harder to reduce the casualties. Instead, I waited till the last moment to react. It's my fault, and I'm sorry for that."

Liepard started hissing at me. At the time, I thought that she now hated me. "I know that you still hate me on the inside, so don't bother pretending that you're ok with my existence." In response, she stopped hissing. She dropped her head into my arms and wept to herself. In my head, I thought about her actions, saying, "She would've never done this with a person she hated… I must've read the wrong reasoning behind her emotion… but what did she mean?"

I didn't know; I couldn't speak pokemon so all I could work with was body language. I sometimes misread them, and from the looks of things, this was probably the worst mis-read I ever performed in my life. I reduced a pokemon to tears in front of me, and I didn't know what to say to her.

"Death in a party?" A voice carried over to me. I looked up, and it was another trainer looking over at me. I didn't even bother reading or looking over his appearance; I just looked away from him the moment I took a glance in his direction.

"No," I replied back in a dark tone. "Nuzlockers were grinding on a group of liepards, and she used to be a member of it. Almost all of them died because of sick actions like yours!" I was literally screaming at the guy. I had my head turned in his direction, but I kept my eyes closed. I felt as if this man didn't deserve a decent being to look him in the eyes.

By the time I finally opened my eyes, the trainer was already gone. Nobody was visibly around me; I couldn't see anyone. I must've scared not only him, but everyone else off.

Almost immediately, I heard someone place their behind on another bench beside mine. I looked over to the sound, and upon my first glance I knew the man was suspicious. He wore nothing but a white cloak. It covered almost every inch of his body, except for his face, but the hood covered that for the most part. I couldn't see anything recognizable about anyone I talked to previously. However, I was rather shocked that he didn't run away from my sudden outburst.

"How d-do you do?" The man asked. He sounded old, tired. I noticed an odd speech impediment, almost like he was slightly stuttering on his words. It wasn't annoying; he seemed to get used to talking later in the conversation. At first, I didn't even reply back to him, but then he asked again, "How do you do, young man?"

"Um… ok, I guess." I guess you guys could say that I had no clear idea on what to tell this guy. Who the heck was he? Why would he just calmly sit right next to me after I just screamed my lungs out in public? This guy was beginning to become nothing but another oddball, but something about him began to poke at my curiosity. "So… how about you? How have you been doing?"

"Dreadful," The man replied. "Absolutely dreadful."

"Oh," I looked away from him, turning my head to face the ground below me. I could still hear liepard's crying, and it was beginning to break me down; I didn't know whether to ask the man what his problem was or try my best to calm liepard down… thing was, I didn't know what to say to her. "I see… can you tell me why?" I decided to focus on the old gentlemen in the cloak; after all, I can at least understand the human language of english.

"Ah, I just observed another cruel fate to another battler over there." He directed his arm over to a street, and my eyes followed it, and as I continued to follow it my heart's beat rapidly increased. Something was up; I noticed where that finger was directing to. "Plus, I had a little escapee run away from my custody about a day ago." Finally, he turned his head over to me, and I could finally see under his hood. His skin was incredibly pale-white, but unfortunately all I could see was his mouth and nose, which were both covered in wrinkles. "Tell me… do you know there that kid is?"

This man knew I was him, because this guy was 'the' guy. The hermit… the hermit was him, and he was looking right at me. His smile irritated me; it looked like he was mocking me or something. In a quick flash of anger, I jumped from the bench and bolted over to his. When I reached him, my hands were both curled into fists, but something about him scared me on the inside; he didn't even flinch… once.

"Now now, no need to be a little jumpy, Conrad." He stood back up and took off his hood. From under his hood, I noticed his hair had been incredibly thin, but still black nonetheless. His face fit the description of the hermit for the most part, but overall this guy gave me the creeps. "A thank you should be in order, but I won't harp on you too much for your actions; it's not everyday you get taken in by complete strangers and healed of all wounds."

"So, you really are that man," I replied back, backing away slowly. I wasn't exactly focused on the fact that this man already knew my name, (I at least knew there was a possibility that he logged onto my PDA) but I was really curious about his power; the ability to heal wounds like he did awhile ago. "Tell me, how did you find me and why did you take me in?"

"You were a kid that got injured in the forest outside of the city; why else would I take you in?"

"I'm not a kid; I happen to be a teenager now, and I graduated high school."

"Ah, so you're pretty much a young man now, correct?"

"Yes," I replied in an irritated tone. "But still, I want more information like HOW you were able to heal me in what only felt like a few hours time. How were you able to perform such actions?"

The man only laughed at my question. His laugh sounded tired, rather poor in structure. It was like his life was hanging on a thread at this point. I heard that he was in his 50s, yet, from what his laughter sounded like, he sounded like he was at least in his 80s. Liepard finally stopped weeping, and she soon turned over to the man, watching him; remembering him.

"Ah!" The man shouted as he eyed the liepard. "There she is." The way he said it was almost like he was a grandfather seeing his grandchildren after a long period of separation; his tone of voice was really starting to creep me out, for I really didn't want to be involved with him anymore.

Liepard thought differently; she leaped off the chair and finally let off a large smile. The man picked her up and wrapped his arms tight around her. They both seemed happy… too happy. They were perfect for eachother; trainer and pokemon. I remember that certain bond; it was like Yinca and me, for she and I were inseparable. However, this man only met this liepard a day and a half ago, so why they got so fond of each other so quickly was vague to me at the time.

"This is one nice liepard you have here," the man said to me as he stroked the cat's long, purple fur. "Amazing, actually. I didn't expect her to grow onto you that fast since that 'thing.' I mean, what're the odds?"

"Pardon?" That one word… 'thing' … It was at that moment that I knew that this man knew too much; much more than what he was letting on in the beginning. The worst part was that he didn't even seem like he was attempting to keep any of these things hidden from me. It was like he was constantly annoying me to keep picking at the hints he was purposely leaving out for me. "What the hell- who the… what do you even want from me, old man!?"

"Old man?" The man gently placed the liepard on the ground, and she immediately ran to my side. She didn't seem to get why I was so agitated, but I knew too damn well that this man was 'hiding' something. "I'll have you know that I'm only about 54 years old."

"Shut up!" I yelled to him. "Who are you!? What the hell are you!? Why did you know about that grinding session anyways!?"

Liepard finally caught on. She looked towards me, and her eyes popped wide open. My only guess was that she recalled that single world that the man put emphasis on earlier. She slowly turned her head over to him and watched as he only cracked a smile. The man finall shrugged and said the following; "I followed you and your three other human companions in hopes of recruiting fine new members. When I saw most of them grinding, I knew that they were already too deep into the nuzlocke ways of training."

"So you actually did see them train," I replied. I lifted my foot one foot off the ground, and then I slammed it against the hard sidewalk. "You just sat there, watching as they were killing all of those liepa-"

"Don't try to put guilt on me, young man." That tone was different than the rest; this time, the man sounded angry. Before, he was all carefree and somewhat sarcastic. However, before I could complete my sentence, he completed a complete 180 in terms of personality change; he was an entirely new person. "Last time I saw the grinding session, you yourself refused to even lift a finger!"

Oh… Not only did he hit me that low, but to have this brought up again right after I acknowledged my mistake? He was starting to get on my nerves. "But I-"

"And do I look like I'm a trainer? I'm in my 50s, you ungrateful little shit! Humans like you should learn how to act in those sorts of situations; why didn't you at least try to protect them? Hell, those trainers were your comrades, last time I checked. I'm sure if you actually talked to them about it… less lives would've been lost!"

My throat was drying up; images of those pokemon dying were flashing in front of my eyes. The wails of pain… the ponds of blood… and those seared and burned corpses. They were coming back into my head as guilt overtook me. No longer was I able to construct a sentence, and the more I looked at this man, the more I began to accept the fact; the situation would've ended if I actually tried harder… but I didn't. "But… I-"

"Don't even bother replying back." The man turned away from me as his cloak swayed with his movements. Even though the man moved away fast, his cloak seemed to make him look like he was moving slower. He continued to talk to me, but he seemed incredibly disinterested in even talking to me; I don't even know how to describe it. "If you want to actually feel like you accomplished something in order to redeem yourself, then check out the note I left on the bench."

"The- the note?" I asked.

"It leads you to an address, plus it has some extra details on why and what we're meeting for." He directed his hand over to the bench. As soon as I followed the direction of where he pointed I noticed that there was now a note laying on the bench. My eyes were glued to it, and slowly I moved towards the note. As I got to the bench, I picked up the note and began to read it.

I read the first words on the note, and I immediately threw the note to the ground. Anger roared through me; to think that I would have to reunite with something I'd been trying to leave behind since I got back to this city. This man wanted me to deal with nuzlocke matters again… he wanted me to go to an address which held some nuzlocke event. I was sick of the word! Nuzlocke! Nuzlocke! Death and more death!

Uncontrollably, almost like my body was doing it on its own, my body spun around, eager to now direct all my anger and rage at the man. "You think I would want to-!..." Before I could even turn around all the way I realized that he had vanished; he was gone. Admittedly, it took me awhile to get the note from the bench, so it gave him time to run away… but to do that without even being heard…

I picked up the note off the ground and looked at it. An address and info about the even was posted on one side while the other side presented information regarding the trainers there and their current party members of their pokemon teams. For some reason their names weren't posted; only background information about them were present.

Still, the fact that I had to be involved in this stupid fad only irritated me further. I didn't have the will to scream anymore, for I knew that would accomplish so little. I didn't know what to do with the note, and I sure as hell didn't know if I was going to the building on the address or not.

However, I soon heard whimpers of the liepard sitting next to me, watching me. She walked over to me, kneeling her head on my legs with tears flowing from her eyes. All she has is me now; the nuzlocke took away her family and comrades, leaving only her and a few others to fend in the forests alone. I couldn't leave the nuzlocke in the back of my mind forever, for it already caused my pokemon too much suffering. I knew that this shouldn't continue; the fact that more and more trainers were willing to throw down other lives for their own successes just seemed baffling to me. Not only that, but the fact that so many of them are now dying only made me loathe the fad more; I had to do something.

I had to do this to end the madness.


End file.
